


Bleeding Out

by CaptainAmelia22



Series: In the Shadows [2]
Category: Captain America, Marvel
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Changing Relationships, Developing Relationship, Eventual Sex, F/M, Light BDSM, eventual kid fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:33:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainAmelia22/pseuds/CaptainAmelia22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow they will get their lives figured out. Somehow they will find a way to balance. They're Avengers, after all. Goddamn superheroes.</p><p>Love shouldn't be this hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1:  Hello, I'm...

Sharon was on the team that found him in the ice.  

She was the first one to repel down into Schmidt’s ship, according to Fury and Natasha.  She was the first person to touch him in seventy years.  When he had opened his eyes to a future he still found terrifying and dark, she had been curled up in a chair at his bedside, a Quinjet repair manual dangling from her fingers as she slept.  

She was the only one who had looked him in the eye and told him that if he wanted to survive in a world he’d never thought to see, he’d have to let go of the world he still longed to go back to.  

He probably should have known then,that Agent 13 wasn’t just a SHIELD operative.

He should have known she was special.  

But he didn’t find out who she was until their first mission together, the mission they had been sent on to retrieve James Barnes.  

The mission after which his old friend had joined him in the land of the living.

**

The day he was sent after the Winter Soldier, the terrorist and assassin out of the sordid history of SHIELD’s past, he was summoned by Director Fury to the bowels of the Helicarrier.  To the Medical Bay.  He hadn’t questioned it.  He’d only been thinking of the mission.  Of the rumors Fury’s team kept whispering about.  About a shadowy assassin some of their own had worked with, once-upon-a-time, in the snowy streets of Russia.

They were saying...

They were saying he wasn’t just a Commie leftover.  They were saying he was...

An old American hero.

A legend.

Steve had had no idea of what to make of that.

So he had suited up and gone to Fury.  Completely oblivious as to what exactly the man had planned.

“Captain, I believe you know Agent 13,” he had said when Steve entered Medical, uniformed and armed with the shield.  Steve had recognized the Director’s companion immediately.  

He had nodded politely, his fingers rising to his forehead in a habitual salute that still amused Tony Stark, even after all of these months as team-members.  The tiny blonde at Fury’s side had smiled and shifted uncomfortably on the examination table she perched upon.  “Ma’am,” Steve had said, his eyes narrowing as he took in the bruises marring her normally delicate features.  “You were involved in my recovery weren’t you?”  He knew she had been.  

He’d never talked much to her; waking up seventy years after making the ultimate sacrifice had kind of put a damper on any social skills he’d had, which had been few, even back during the War.  He just hadn’t been sure how to approach any of the Agents Fury had set to help him.  And besides, in many ways he had still been grieving during his recovery period.  Once medical had cleared him and Fury had set him up with a team of men and women whom he respected and cared for...

Well, he hadn’t seen much of Agent 13 lately.

He had suddenly found he regretted that.

Agent 13 smiled and shrugged nonchalantly, her cheeks pale and her shoulders stiff; Steve wondered how bad her injuries were but didn’t ask.  “I’ve been involved in a bit more than that Captain,” she said, her voice soft and her brown eyes knowing.

He’d never noticed how familiar they were.  

“What’s the mission sir?” he had asked, dragging his eyes from the SHIELD agent before him.  His fingers had tightened around the straps of his shield when Director and operative shared a pointed glance.  

“You and Agent 13 are going snipe hunting, Captain,” Fury had said before handing over a thick folder marked with the name the Winter Soldier on its front.

Steve hadn’t noticed until later much of the information hidden within had been written in Natasha Romanov’s handwriting.  

“I think we’re going to have a wonderful partnership, Captain,” Agent 13 had said as he shook her hand and Fury had looked on with a mild look of exasperation on his face.

Steve Rogers hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of drowning in her warm, brown eyes.  

“It’ll be my pleasure ma’am...”

**

“What a pleasure this is,” the Winter Soldier said, his cold and accented voice echoing through the cavernous cathedral they’d tracked him to in the slums of London.  It had been abandoned for ten years, after a fire had destroyed ninety percent of its interior.  The perfect nesting spot for their snipe.  “Captain America and his little pet.  How are you Agent?  Has the good Captain connected all of the pieces as to your identity, Agent Carter?”

Steve froze, his arm suspended, the shield at the very verges of his fingers and he glanced at the woman standing at his side.  She ignored him; instead she concentrated on the shadowy figure they could just make out at the altar and snapped, “I’m not his pet, James.  Now come out of the shadows so we can talk like civilized people.”

Steve Rogers eyes had narrowed at the slight tremble he could just detect in the Agent’s (Carter?  Carter?!  What...) fingers around the butt of the gun she held, but before he could ask what the Winter Soldier had meant, their target had laughed.

The ratcheting noise grated through the decaying church and both of SHIELD’s operatives shivered.  “Civilized? Is that what you are Sharon Carter?  My, the world is a strange place.  The last I saw of you, you were threatening me with my death and I am very much certain you would have slaughtered me no matter how events had transpired. Do not take another step, Captain!  Or I will blow the rest of this tomb down around your ears.  Even Fury won’t be able to put you back together this time around.”  

Another laugh and Steve froze beside a massive pillar; he’d begun inching forward while their target had been speaking, desperate-desperate to see if what the Agent at his back thought was true.  

“You won’t blow the church, Buck,” he called softly, his serum enhanced vision sharpening as he caught sight of the shaggy haired man standing upon the altar shift.  He could just make out the faint glitter of metal in the dim light filtering through the gaping roof above them.  

A metal limb to replace the arm he’d lost to the icy Alps.  Because Steve had let him fall.

His fault.

It had begun to rain in London and a fine mist lent an air of other-worldliness to the defunct church.

It was almost easy to believe Bucky had survived his fall.

After all...Steve had survived his.

As he took a slow step forward, towards the altar, he found himself wondering if the new arm would rust of it was made out of a material similar to his shield.  Or the duralium Stark had used for the scales of his uniform.

Somehow he didn’t think the Communists would have put much stock in otherworldly metals for an assassin though, no matter his history.  

The assassin’s head cocked as he muttered angrily in Russian and Steve’s eyes narrowed at the sight of a gun sliding free of the holster at his hip and leveling in his direction.  

“I do not like what you keep calling me, Captain,” he called, his accent just a tad fainter.  “My name is Anatoly and I am a soldier of the State.  You do-”

“You’re my best friend Bucky Barnes and you’re from Brooklyn,” Steve snapped and for the first time since waking from the ice he actually found himself hoping.

Hoping that someone he loved had survived the War and the future.  

“Your name is Bucky and if you could see yourself you’d be horrified, Barnes,” he said to the shadowy soldier watching him from over the gun he aimed straight for the Captain’s eyes.  The man sneered and there was a bit of Barnes in that look.  

Just enough for Captain America to hope.  

“You have to remember who you are Buck, remember for me.”  

There was a moment of hesitation and then, “Why do you keep fighting Captain?  Why do you keep fighting, even when it seems the world has ended?”

Steve sighed and threw the shield.

“Because I never want to give up, not when there’s hope for winning,” he said as the vibranium slammed into the body of the man he’d fought to save and had lost.  

When he turned from Bucky’s crumpled body (his friend was alive! Bucky was alive!) he realized his mysterious partner was gone.  Agent 13.  Agent Carter?!

Who was she?  And why hadn’t she come forward before now?

And how did Bucky know about her?

How did any of this actually happen?

It was like something from the comic books of his youth.  

Turning back to his best friend he frowned, before heaving the man into his arms and over his shoulder to rest against the shield.  “Report Agent Carter,” he snapped to the shadows.  

There was a crackle in the comm snugly fitted in his ear and she said, “My name is Sharon Carter-I’m the niece of Margaret Carter, whom you knew as Peggy during the Second World War and I have a sister named Shannon.  I’ve worked for SHIELD for ten years, I like cats and I have a tiny apartment in Queens I live in when I’m not on a mission for Fury.  Nice to meet you Captain America.  Now come on, I’ve got the jet waiting.”

Steve smiled as he paced slowly down the aisle towards the massive double doors at the rear of the cathedral, his arms locked tight around the body of his best friend and said.  “Nice to meet you Sharon, now where are you?”


	2. Part Two:  Blood, Sweat and Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut, angst and lies ahead.

“Where is she?!”  

The Captain’s bellow rocked through the bowels of the Helicarrier and all within earshot winced.  Medics scurried out of his way as he strode by on the way to Medical and only the agents walking with him kept calm.   

Natasha’s eyes narrowed at Steve Roger’s broad back before her, silently noting his stance and the blood trickling through the scales under his arm; his shoulders were bunched tight with anger and what she suspected might be more than his fair share of fear over what they’d just witnessed on this latest disastrous mission.  She fought off a shiver at the memories of a gun firing and Steve’s terrified voice drowning out a familiar woman’s voice screaming his name.  She couldn’t stop worrying about the Captain though and glanced at her companion.  “Barnes, do something,” she hissed, her green eyes blazing.  “He’s going to tear this place apart or terrify a medic before he gets to her.”  

James “Bucky” Barnes met her gaze and sighed.  “Steve,” he snapped just as they turned the corner leading to the main medical bay.  “Steve, look at me.”  

The Captain kept walking.

His hands were clenched into tight fists at his side and all knew if he had his shield he’d be itching to smash it into the mouths of any he thought might stand up to him.

Barnes ducked around Natasha and cut his friend and Captain off, just as the man reached Room 0083.  

Both men glared at each other, their faces inches apart and Natasha rolled her eyes at the sight of Steve’s narrowing and his knuckles going white.  These two were best friends, but sometimes...

Sometimes the measuring-up got old.  

“Assholes,” she sighed before taking up a position against the wall, her arms folded and the bracelets she wore still humming with energy.  She hadn’t removed them after their battle with some of Hydra’s latest freaks.  And she wasn’t about to remove them now.  Her green eyes were dangerous sparks despite the mild expression and easy stance she affected and a small muscle jumped in her jaw at the sight of Steve and Barnes glaring into each other’s faces.  

“Get out of the way Bucky,” Steve snarled through clenched jaws.  He’d removed what remained of his cowl and his dirty blonde hair tumbled into his eyes in sweaty strings.  There were bruises darkening his chin and jaw from where Schmidt had roughened him up a bit.  

Those bruises would be gone by the morning.

His anger might not be though.  

“You know I can’t do that Steve.  You’re worn out and wounded and you need to step back,” Bucky said, his voice tight, but controlled.  His brown eyes were dark, dangerously so and everyone was just barely holding on tonight.

They’d almost lost one of their own.  One that wouldn’t bounce back easily.  And everyone knew Steve Rogers was going to blame himself for that until he was able to determine for himself that she was okay.  He was going to blame himself for her new scar and the metal the medics removed from her shoulder.  

He was going to have new nightmares too, Natasha was sure of that; instead of a snowy descent into the steel grey waters of the Arctic he was going to dream of a tiny blonde throwing herself in the path of a bullet meant for him though.  He was going to dream about sacrifices his team kept making, over and over.

He never seemed to worry about his own sacrifices though, not after paying the ultimate price seventy years ago.

Maybe now he would...

“She’s going to be fine, Steve,” Barnes said, his voice marginally calmer now and his hand rose to settle on Steve’s shoulder.  The Captain flinched from his touch, from the sound of metal on metal and Barnes sighed, his head lowering a bit so his dark hair tumbled over the mask he still wore.  “You’re not going to help her, blazing into the room all righteous and patriotic.  Just-just take a deep breath okay?”

Nobody breathed while Steve shifted and tried to reign his fury in.  Nobody even moved; they were surrounded by medics and SHIELD personnel but nobody approached the three standing outside of the private room the fourth member of their team had been squirreled away in.  

Most knew better than to approach any of these soldiers, least of all the Captain when he was in a rage.  The memories of him smashing a suited agent to the floor of the carrier after being told Tony Stark would receive no back-up from SHIELD in a battle against the Mandarin were still fresh in all of SHIELD’s mind.

That outburst had been over a minor clerical issue regarding his team and Director Fury’s stance on Stark’s worth to the agency.

Stark and Rogers barely tolerated each other on good days.  And the Captain had still blown-up at the thought of one of his team fighting on his own.

But this was Sharon Carter.

Nobody, other than the two assassins at his side, was going to even try to calm the Captain down tonight.  

“Schmidt almost killed her tonight, Buck,” he ground out, his head falling forward so his blonde hair tumbled over his brow.  “That bullet was meant for me, you know it was.  And-”

“And she did her duty, Rogers,” Natasha snapped before pushing herself off of the wall and approaching the two men standing in front of Sharon’s room.  Barnes ignored her but she could make out Steve’s baby blues through the tangled and dirty strands of his hair.  “You’re being pig-headed Steve,” she said softly as she eased between them, her tiny figure fitting snugly against James Barnes’ chest.  She cupped Steve’s face between her palms and forced him to look at her.  She smiled sadly.  “You can’t...you can’t second guess her actions when this is something you do on every single mission.”  

Her hands were gentle around his cheeks, comforting and familiar.  Her eyes were fierce though, daring him to fight her.  Fight her words.  

He sighed and sagged into her touch as the fight left his limbs; Natasha winced as her petite frame took most of her Captain’s weight but she shook her head at Barnes when he moved to help her.  She simply ran her fingers through Steve’s sweat and dirt encrusted hair and pressed her cheek to his.  “You’re fine Steve,” she whispered just for him to hear.  “She’s okay and you kept her safe.  That’s all any of us can do.”  

He was quiet for a moment, content to simply take in Natasha’s rarely offered comfort and he muttered, so softly she almost missed it, “I can’t lose her.”

Her fingers were gentle on his chin as she pulled his head up to meet her gaze.  She smiled and her thumb ran over his jawline.  “Then you should tell her that Rogers,” she said firmly.  

“Hear, hear,” Barnes muttered from the position he’d taken up against Room 0083’s door, when Natasha had scolded him away; he was rubbing his metal supported shoulder firmly and Steve almost smiled at the faint irritation he could see in his old friend’s eyes.  

He was interrupting their after-mission cool-off.  

“Get in there,” Barnes said, his brown eyes sharp.  Steve could make out a faint smile on the man’s lips though.  “She needs to know you’re safe, just as much as you need to know she is.”  

Steve’s fingers clenched, the remains of his fury making his skin crawl in his sweat stained uniform and he gritted his teeth tightly.  Striving for calm outside of Sharon’s door was not enough though, he had to...

He had to see her.  

Hold her.

Tell her he was sorry.  

That bullet...It came so close tonight and he’d almost lost her.  Lost her like he’d lost her aunt seventy years ago.  

He couldn’t lose another Carter woman.  

He barely noticed moving past Natasha on his way to the door, barely noticed Barnes’ hand clapping him on the shoulder (metal on metal again).  

“We’ll keep watch,” Natasha said softly when his hand closed around the doorknob.  

“Won’t let any pesky medics in.  Or Fury. Stark’s questionable though, he always smarms his way through barred doors,” Barnes said with a smirk.  

Steve didn’t notice.  

He opened the door and took a step into Sharon’s room.

Brown eyes opened to meet his and he felt his skin tighten at the blatant relief he saw there.  He didn’t move from the doorway.

He didn’t trust himself to just yet.

He couldn’t feel his legs.

Brown eyes he would forever love, blinked slowly and a hand, armed with an IV and wrapped tightly in bandages, patted the thin hospital mattress gently.

“C’mere,” she said, her voice soft and more than a little wrecked.  He idly wondered how much morphine they’d dosed her with and hoped this wasn’t a sign that she was too damaged.  

He went to her before he could wonder any further and somehow he managed to stay upright.

She sighed when he arrived at her side and cupped her hand gently in his.  “Steve,” she said.  “Are you okay?”

“I am, Sharon,” he said, his voice gentle and his eyes softening from the furious ice-blue they’d been in the hallway to a warm cornflower.  “Are you okay?”

**

“I’m okay, Steve, Zemo didn’t even come close to kicking my ass.  You’re just overreacting.”

Sharon’s soft voice almost set him off and he gritted his teeth.  He didn’t trust himself to speak, not just yet.  He’d almost lost her again tonight, lost her to the villains he had hoped she would never have to come up against again.

Memories of Zemo grinding Sharon into the flight deck of the burning Helicarrier once more struck him and he shuddered.  He could still hear Zemo laughing, taunting him, as he squeezed the life from Sharon’s body.  He’d told her to get belowdecks, to get to a Quinjet and rendezvous with Fury but she’d refused.  She’d refused and gone after Zemo and Viper herself, while he and the Avengers tried to finish off Hydra.  He hadn’t been able to stop her.

Without noticing, his fingers closed around one of the picture frames she had set up on a little table just within her Queens apartment foyer and as his mind played Zemo’s toying once more for his enjoyment, he threw the picture.

From the corner of his eye he noted Sharon’s little jump and the widening of her eyes when the frame shattered into a shower of glass and twisted metal against the brick wall across the room but he felt no remorse.  

All he felt was fear.

He’d almost lost her...lost Sharon...

“Steve-”

Her voice was meek, harsh, thanks to the pressure Zemo had put on her throat and Steve was gripping another picture frame.

“Fuck,” he snarled as his next victim exploded and glass shivered and gathered at the base of the wall.  He prowled from the foyer to the main room of the apartment, every muscle in his body aching and tight and even now, hours after Fury’s debriefing he was losing his control.  

He hated it.  

His hands rose to run frantically through his still-damp hair as he paced and his skin shivered under Sharon’s calculating gaze.  He knew she felt no remorse for what she’d done.  

For almost dying.

She felt no guilt for coming this close to leaving him for good.  

“Why, Sharon?” he asked finally, his voice grating and harsh in the tense silence of her apartment.  “Why did you do it again?”  

She didn’t move from her position just behind him.  She didn’t breathe.

Then...

“Are you mad because I did my job or are you mad that you couldn’t stop me Steve Rogers?” she snapped, her voice blatantly challenging.  “Hm?  Is that what this is about?  You think Fury has more control over me than you?  Is that it?”

Steve’s eyes narrowed.  He heard the challenge in her voice, in her words.  He knew what she was doing.  

“Don’t bait me, Sharon,” he snarled through clenched jaws.  “Not tonight, not now.”

She laughed, the sound ratcheting and full of disdain.  “Stop me then, since you can’t seem to control my actions out in the field.”

He turned so fast she had no hope of reacting.  Steve Rogers was a super soldier and she was just a normal human.  She had no chance against him when he was so charged; she gasped the moment he slammed her forcefully against the rough brick wall of her apartment and her eyes widened when he leaned into her, his fingers tight on her shoulders.  

“Don’t play games with me, Sharon,” he growled and she shivered at the feel of his fingers flexing against her skin. His eyes were blazing, furious and scared.  

Loving.

His hips ground against hers and a dark desire she’d felt all night at the sight of Steve trying to reign in his frustration and fear about her well-being began to rear its ugly head.  She didn’t think he noticed when she spread her legs enough for his knee to slip comfortably against her pulse.  

“Are you going to try and take control tonight, Captain?” she whispered into the heavy silence between them and she watched his eyes darken and his jaw tighten.  Another shiver washed through her and she placed her hands gently on his hips, pressuring him subtly into her body.  “Go ahead and try,” she hissed in his ear.

“Sharon,” he groaned at the burning trails her fingers made over his body.  His muscles jumped the moment her fingers stroked the hard swell at the front of his jeans and he gritted his teeth when she squeezed.  

“Come on Cap, be the commanding officer tonight,” she whispered as her fingers stroked him through the suddenly too tight denim of his slacks.  “Order me.”  

He swallowed heavily, seeking desperately for the calm he needed, for the patience he was so famous for.  

He didn’t find either.

“Bedroom,” he choked out as he jerked her sharply from the wall and away from his body.  “Go on.”  

Her brown eyes blazed briefly at the rough treatment but then she took in his chest straining against the dark t-shirt he wore under his leather jacket and the way his hands clenched and she acquiesced.  “Yes sir,” she barked, her hand rising to execute a cocky little salute.  Her tongue darted out to moisten the corners of her lips at the sight of his hands tightening at his side as he prowled after her and she smirked.  “Orders, sir?”

He considered her for a moment and when her back connected with the closed door of her bedroom he penned her in, his palms flat against the wood to either side of her head and he leaned in to bite sharply at her bottom lip; he nipped hard enough for it to swell but he was gentle enough to keep from breaking skin.

She wished he had.  

She groaned into his mouth, her body yearning for his touch, firm or gentle she really didn’t care.  She just wanted his hands on her body.

Wanted to see those eyes blaze with barely controlled anger as he took her.

His hand stroked the bruise Viper had raised on the curve of her cheek and she flinched from his touch; his eyes darkened at that but he did not apologize for the touch.  

He simply pushed the door open.

“Inside,” he barked, the order sharp in his voice and she gasped with the unexpected opening of the door at her back and stumbled.  His fingers closed firmly around her outflung wrist for one brief moment, steadying her, but before she could even register his touch he had released her.  She straightened in the middle of the room and watched expectantly as he shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it over the desk chair just inside the doorway; his fingers skated through his hair once more, messing its loose waves and she actually itched to do that herself.  To touch him.  

He met her gaze and sighed knowingly before jerking his chin towards her bed. “Stand there, Sharon,” he snapped as he prowled into the room; his shoulders were tight and his eyes were just a glint in the half-light of the streetlamp below her windows.  

She went to the bed and watched him.

Steve’s fingers trailed over the different furnishings of the room, the callused pads rustling over their surfaces casually and her skin jumped at the memories those tiny sounds brought to mind.  

Ghosts of his caresses washed over her skin and suddenly her breath was coming in shallow little gasps and her fingers were shaking.

“Steve,” she whispered but she stopped when his hand rose sharply and he barked, “No talking Carter.”

So she waited, her breath coming out in faint whispers and she held herself as still as she could.  

It was difficult though.

So very difficult.  

Finally, after a moment of silence during which he did nothing but stand in front of the window and she tried to keep calm, he gave his orders.

“Strip for me Sharon,” he said, his voice firm in the shadows and she frowned.  This was not normal for them-Steve never asked for a strip tease.  

She thought about protesting but then her eyes rose to meet his and she acquiesced at the shadows she saw lurking in their blue depths

“Yes sir,” she said softly as she shrugged first from her own leather jacket and then the loose t-shirt she wore.  

Steve was quiet while she undressed, his hands tight at his side as he prowled the room, his eyes sharp and focused on her careful movements.  When she reached back to unclasp her bra his hand flew out to stop hers.  

“Pants next,” he said softly, his eyes blank in the shadows of his face; she shivered at the command in his voice and nodded minutely.  

He kept her hands pinned for just a moment waiting to see if she thought to rebel but she wasn’t going to fight him.  Not tonight, not now.  She waited, her chest tight and her body tense with barely controlled nerves and desire.  But he still held her so she closed her eyes and leaned into his warmth, risking his frustration.

He released her.

And kept prowling, those damned fingers trailing over every surface of her room without touching any part of her; it was maddening and she found herself wondering just what kind of game they were playing.  

And how far he’d let her take it.  

His scent overwhelmed her as he neared, musky and familiar and her eyes fluttered closed in response as she struggled with nerveless fingers to unsnap her jeans; he smelled like the industrial soap SHIELD provided in Medical for its operatives clean-up and that spicy old-fashioned aftershave only Steve could hope to pull off.   

He smelled safe.

He smelled like home.  

He smelled like...her Captain.

The tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her lips once more as that dark desire she both loved and hated twisted through her limbs and she fought off a whimper as she probed at the swollen skin he’d nipped when he’d held her against the door.

She almost missed the faint laugh he let out in response to her playing.

Sharon ignored him and unzipped the jeans, taking care to go slow, to not rush the game.

Steve’s presence was all her senses could focus on though; he overwhelmed her mentally as much as his massive figure would overwhelm her physically in bare moments.

His circles around her were getting smaller and smaller and as the jeans she’d borrowed from Natasha slid to the floor to pool at her ankles and she slid out of the flats she’d salvaged from her locker on the Helicarrier, he came to a halt.

Directly behind her.

She held as still as she could, even when his fingers rose to brush the dark bruises at her hips and shoulders; he pressed against them and though she knew he was actually being very gentle, the sharp stabs of pain were enough to infuriate her once more.

Zemo had given her those marks during Hydra’s attack against SHIELD.

So she’d broken his nose as payback.

She held her breath, waiting to see what Steve would do but he seemed to be content for now to simply touch.

To ascertain for himself that she was relatively intact.

She knew if she looked, his own bruises and scrapes would be non-existent and his body would be well on its way to super-soldier recovery.  

Mostly thanks to Bucky Barnes shoving three MRE’s down his throat and forcing him to eat on the way to SHIELD headquarters for a debrief and a shower.  

She bit back a groan when his fingers trailed down her spine to span the small of her back and she couldn’t help shivering when those callused pads trailed over her ass; his breath was warm on the back of her neck when he huffed out a short laugh at her trembling and he nipped gently at her ear. She sagged into him at that but again, before she could hope to instigate anything further than basic warmth, he was gone from her.  

There was the soft sound of fabric dragging over skin but she didn’t look to see what he was doing.

She tried to hold herself together.

Even as her knees trembled and desire tightened its fist in her belly.  

Her skin jumped in the silence and her body ached with barely contained frustration.

She wished she could say his name.

She wished she could ask him for help.

She wished...

“Turn around,” he ordered, his voice harsh in the silence and she jumped a bit under his touch; but she obeyed quickly and turned to face him.  He’d removed his shirt.  Her fingers clenched at the sight of his muscles rippling with the tight little movements he made as he shifted before her; his jaw was tight and the veins in his arms stood out in stark contrast against his skin.  

He was really quite magnificent.

“Kneel,” he snapped and it was almost pathetic how fast she fell to her knees before him; her breath hissed between her teeth when his fingers fisted into her hair and she trembled against the tightness.

She was eye level with his crotch.  

She didn’t touch him.  

She waited.

“How long have we been seeing each other Sharon?” he asked suddenly and his free hand cupped her chin while his hand buried in her hair pulled her head back.

She arched into his touch, her breasts outthrust, her nipples hardening against the cups of her bra when they brushed the fronts of his jeans but he did not let her touch.

He pulled her head back further.  

“Answer the question, Agent Carter,” he barked, his eyes blazing in the shadows and she snapped to attention as well as she could; the sound of his teeth grinding together when her breasts brushed his barely restrained erection was loud in the bedroom and she shivered.

“A y-year,” she choked out when his fingers dug into the base of her skull and into her jaw.  He hummed noncommittally and stroked the pad of his thumb over her lips.  Seeing her wince when he passed over the mark he’d given her earlier his lips lifted in a small smile and he pressed firmly against the faint bruise.  

She whimpered but he ignored her yearning body and the faint trembling taking over her limbs; instead he waited, his thumb tight on her mouth and his fingers firm on her scalp.

“And in that year how many times have you ended up in Medical for injuries you’ve received that could have been avoided if you’d let the Avengers do their jobs?” he growled, his touch growing more insistent and Sharon knew then.

Knew what he wanted.

She softened into his touch, into his cruel fingers, some part of her yearning for his anger to wash over her and she almost cried out when he squeezed her jaw so the joints ached.    
“Six times,” she ground out around his tight grip but he snorted and closed his eyes.  

“That’s right.  Six times you’ve gotten injured at the hands of the bastards we fight daily, even when I’ve asked you to stay out of it.  Six times I’ve waited on the other side of an OR door, waited while they fix you up.  Again and again.  I watch you suit up and I don’t know if it’ll be the last time I can hold you. Kiss you.  Tell you to be safe.  I don’t know if...goddammit.  Just do your duty Sharon,” he snapped and suddenly his fingers were no longer holding her; she gasped at the sudden loss of his touch and she almost quailed when he took up an at-ease position before her, his legs spread a shoulder-width apart and his hands tucked into the small of his back.

He didn’t look at her.  

Didn’t acknowledge her.

His eyes rested on a point above her tousled head, their gaze flat.  

Dead.

The only sign that he was even her Captain anymore that hard swell just before her.  

“Yes sir,” she said, her voice husky and meek.

His lips twitched.

He didn’t believe the meekness.

Just like she didn’t believe the coldness in his demeanor.

He’d had more than enough time to be cruel.

So...

She unzipped his jeans, slowly, carefully and with each inch she drew down, the fingers of her free hand stroked him.

He didn’t bat an eye.  

He hardened under her touch though.  

His jeans puddled at his feet and she tapped his ankles gently, signalling for him to step free, which he did, his movements as ever, economical.  

She grasped him through the thin cotton of his briefs and almost smiled when he jumped under her touch; she rolled his balls in her cupped palm, revelling at the feel of his solid weight in her grasp and-

His hand was tight on the back of her skull once more and his eyes were nothing but black shadows now when he jerked her back to look at him.  

“Six times, Sharon,” he snapped and his words were so clipped she wondered if he even opened his mouth enough to say them.  “Six times you’ve ended up in medical.”  He shook her, firmly but again, not hard enough to harm.  She closed her eyes and turned her head enough to feather a kiss against the inside of his wrist.  He jerked her away once more.  “Six-that’s three times more than Clint’s been in Medical since I met him.  And that’s almost twice the times I’ve sent Natasha or Bucky to get fixed up.”  

She couldn’t help a smile at his frustrated words and despite the grip he still had on her hair, leaned into him, her face pressed gently to his thighs.  

“What about Stark?” she whispered, her lips feathering against the heated fabric of his briefs.  “How many times have you sent him to Medical?”

His hand loosened against her scalp and she shivered when he stroked one knuckle over the bruise Zemo had given her; before she could react he was once more in position, his hands tight in the base of his back and his gaze fixed resolutely ahead.  

“Continue with the task at hand Carter,” he snapped and she knew she would be the only one able to detect the faint tremor in his voice.

Or the shiver of his muscles as she finally touched him.  

Flesh to flesh.

The briefs joined his jeans and his erection was bared to the cool air of her bedroom.  And her lips.  

Steve’s breath hissed between his teeth the moment she took him, her hand firm on his warm skin and his thighs tightened in response to her tongue sliding along his tip.  

“Sharon,” he groaned and if this was not the game, she knew his hands would be resting in her hair, tangling against her scalp.  Pushing her on.  Caressing her.  “Goddammit,” he hissed when the muscles of her throat began to work around his length.  

He kept still though, his back ram-rod straight and his hands tight in his back.  

She glanced at him and saw those long eyelashes sweep down to shield his darkened blue eyes and she would smile.  

If she could.

“Keep going,” he barked when she hesitated, her fingers firm on his balls, on the base of his erection.  His eyes opened and they blazed furiously with pleasure and that particular deep-seated anger she loved seeing emerge.  “I did not tell you to stop Carter.”

She would have saluted.  

She closed her eyes and took him deeper into her mouth, silently praying that he would forgive her.  

That six times wasn’t too many times.  

Steve shuddered with each stroke and tried to maintain his control but all he could see...all he could see was Zemo crushing her.

All he could see was...

Sharon, bloodied and bruised time after time.  Sharon stuck in a hospital bed for days, a cast on her arm.  Then, with a bandage on her head, covering her eyes after a venomous attack from the some of the Serpents deep in the subways of New York.  And after an attack from Veranke she’d thrown the disks in her spine and SHIELD’s doctor’s had placed her in a back brace that gripped her ribs so painfully it left marks that made her sob when he helped her get undressed at night.  

And tonight...tonight there was a bruise on her cheek from a mad-man’s fist.

Six times she’s been hurt, six times she’s almost died at my side.  Six times...

“Stop,” he ground out suddenly, his voice harsh in the stillness of her bedroom.  “Enough Sharon. Enough.”  

His hands were gentle on her cheeks, on her hair, on her shoulders and he was on his knees before she could react, his forehead pressed to hers.  

“Enough.”  

She was panting lightly, her cheeks flushed and her lips swollen and he flinched at the cloudy desire in her eyes.  That just lent a horrible, stark reality to the bruises on her body, proved he was nothing but a tool for her pain.  

He hated seeing her on her knees.

He spent too much time seeing her on the ground, some shadowy villain standing over her, prepared to batter her before his eyes.

No more.

“I-I can’t hurt you.  Not-not like the others,” he whispered brokenly as she shuddered in his arms.  “I can’t, not like this Sharon.  Not-I’m sorry.”   

He kissed her, fiercely, protectively, like he was promising to never let harm come to her again.  Promising her to always keep her safe, safe and warm in his arms.  

She accepted that promise.

And made one of her own.

She promised six would be the end-she promised to leave the Avenging to her Captain.  

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore either, Steve,” she whispered as he held her and she rocked against his body, tight and so very broken.  “I don’t want to hurt you...”

“You won’t,” he groaned into her hair as his body shattered to pieces against hers, into her deepest reaches.  “You can’t hurt me Sharon.  Just-just don’t hurt yourself, for me at least.”  

She promised again.

Sharon Carter didn’t realize until he carried her to bed, his arms so very gentle around her aching body, that she’d been crying.

There were tears on her cheeks.

And lies on her lips.

She knew she’d end up hurting him, one day.  It was almost required of her because she was an agent of SHIELD and he was Captain America.

Pain came with the job.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story started out as mere drabble. 
> 
> And then it gained a life.
> 
> And now it's turning into a monster full of tears and angst.
> 
> Just the way I like it. 
> 
> God I hate myself sometimes.


	3. Part Three:  Sometimes Superheroes Die

“She’s not in any pain, Commander.”  

The medic’s voice was grating in the silent room just off the main floor of Medical.  The woman (girl, really.  Steve Rogers couldn’t help thinking SHIELD was hiring younger in hopes of longer survival) met his gaze over Sharon’s pale and cold body and he ground his teeth at the slightly awed look in her eyes.

It had been years since he’d seen that look in one of SHIELD’s agents.  

The new uniform and new title had catapulted him eight years into the past.  

“What happened?” he snapped and his hands were tight around Sharon’s limp fingers.  She was so cold...

So broken.

The medic didn’t answer and she paled when his eyes rose from Sharon’s body to rest on her.  They were just as cold as the woman she’d been tasked with monitoring.  They were dead.

Haunted.  

“What.  Happened?” he bit out and his voice was harsh, cracking.  If Sharon could wake she’d be able to tell immediately his control was slipping.

She’d hold him and whisper everything was going to be fine.

She wasn’t going to whisper anything ever again.

She’d broken her promise.

Seven times, he thought as the medic blurted her report so quickly he didn’t catch any of her words.  Seven times and this was the clincher.  

“...her lungs collapsed twice when the EMT’s transported her from the accident site to Headquarters and fluid has been draining into her diaphragm, which has increased the strain on her heart and-”

She kept going, even as he stopped and she did not notice him dying over Sharon’s crumpled body.  

She kept going...

“Shut the fuck up and get the hell out of my sight, Private,” he snapped.  He couldn’t take anymore of the medic’s report.  Couldn’t listen to an enumerated listing of just how broken Sharon was.

Couldn’t.  

The girl (so young, God so fucking young.  He remembered when he had been that young.  He remembered thinking it would be amazing to live forever.  He remembered...He wished he wouldn’t) paled and her mouth snapped shut with an audible click.  She hesitated though and did not leave the room; he could almost taste how scared and nervous she was.  He wondered if she’d been ordered to keep her eye on him.  

To make sure...

Can super-soldiers die?  How many bad-guys does it take to kill Captain America?  Black Widow?  Commander Rogers?  

How many...

“Sir, I-”

She was still talking.  

“Get the hell out of this room!” he snarled and his eyes were not so much blue now as ice-grey as he glared at the girl and leaned dangerously over Sharon’s still form.  .  

She dropped the tablet with her patient’s chart displayed on the screen and squeaked.  

He felt nothing.

He would have tossed her out himself if he could have.

But Sharon wouldn’t have approved.

She...

“I’m sorry sir-” the medic whispered and suddenly his hand was tight around the collar of her lab coat and he was dragging her closer to Sharon’s bed, even as he leaned over her body.  He was snarling.

Rabid.

Losing it.

Lost.

“This is your fault!  This is on you and-”  He was roaring and his vision was nothing but red. Nothing.  

The girl didn’t scream.  She met his frantic gaze and he saw fear in her eyes.  Resignation.  

His reflection.

He knew it wouldn’t take much to snap her neck.  He wondered if Sharon would forgive him for that.  

He thought she might.

“I could kill you for this,” he whispered and neither he nor the scarily young medic knew who he was speaking to.  Of.  

A part of him thought he might’ve been talking to Sharon.

His fingers tightened.

“Steve.”

James Barnes’ voice was harsh, a small relief.  The fingers of his left arm were a beacon. His uniform was Steve’s ghost.

“Get out,” the Commander snarled to the new Captain, without looking at the man; he kept his eyes locked on the pale girl in front of him.  He kept his eyes on the reflection of his face he could see in her glassy gaze.  “Just-get the fuck out of here Barnes.”  

A short laugh came from behind the old mask with the white A on its forehead and then- “Not until you let Pear here go.  She’s going to faint.”

The medic (Pear, young, sweet-faced Pear.  He needed to remember her name) was shaking and the pupils in her hazel eyes were blown.  Steve felt nothing though.

She was here to tell him he’d lost Sharon.

He’d made her breakfast this morning.  Woken her up with a kiss and a whispered “I love you.”  He’d rested his head on her belly and hummed to the only two people he loved in the world.  He’d told her to be safe when she went to the doctor.  He’d celebrated with her and Natasha when they called on their way back from that doctor.  He’d looked at the picture she’d sent him and-

“I’m sorry,” he ground out as he released Pear, finger-by-finger.  Barnes caught him when his knees buckled and his best friend kept him from falling across Sharon’s still body.  “I’m sorry...I’m sorry...oh my God.”  

Commander Rogers sagged in Captain America’s arms and only the medic witnessed the two men’s tears.  

Only she witnessed the steady beep of the machines that kept Sharon Carter’s heart beating and her chest moving, even though there was nothing really in that body.  Nothing even remotely alive.

Only she...

“I’m sorry Commander,” she whispered as she turned to go, tears streaming down her cheeks and her heart hammering in her chest.  “I’ll-I’ll leave you alone for a bit.”

She didn’t get all of the way to the door.

Her Commander’s voice stopped her before she could make her escape.  

“The baby?” he asked and his voice was ragged, lacking the calm control she had once heard on one of his tours of her station.  “The-our baby?”

Her eyes closed and she took a deep breath, preparing to give an answer she was sure would break him.

Captain America beat her to it.  

“Stark has him Steve,” Barnes muttered, his brown eyes warning Pear away from beneath his mask; she heeded the warning and made her escape.  The door swished closed behind her on silent coasters as Barnes tried to keep his best friend calm.  Tried and failed.  “Stark came and-”

“Where?!” Steve snarled, any semblance of his control long gone and Barnes winced when his friend’s fingers closed around his shoulder and gripped tight.  “Why does Stark have our baby?!”  

Ice-blue eyes locked on brown and Steve went cold at the sadness he saw in Bucky’s shadowy gaze.  

“They were able to save the baby after Sharon-after the accident-but he’s premature Steve.  He-she-there were only two months left but he’s still too little.  SHIELD wasn’t sure they’d be able to be able to support such a specific type of long-term care so Stark stepped in.  He-he got permission from Fury to help your son.  I’m sorry-I know how you feel about the man.  I-I would have helped but Natasha.  I checked on her first.  I thought Sharon would be okay too.  I-I...I’m sorry Steve.”

Steve glanced at Sharon during his friend’s explanation and felt his defenses finally crumble into nothing but dust.  

“Oh God, I’m sorry Sharon,” he groaned, his face falling to rest in his hands and his fingers fisting into his hair as he sobbed.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

James Barnes wrapped his arms around Steve Rogers and tried to stop his own tears.  

He couldn’t protect his best friend from this.

This...

It had been a car accident.  Just a run-of-the-mill drunk driver running a red light and striking Sharon’s side of the car.  

Natasha had walked away.  

Sharon had not.  

They’d been coming back from Sharon’s doctor in Queens, from her monthly appointment with her ob-gyn.

Everything had been normal.

So heartbreakingly normal.

And she’d been so happy, on the phone with Steve who’d been en-route from a mission to Latveria, and they’d finally begun discussing names.  Boy’s names.  

I like the name Jackson, he’d said as the Quinjet hailed the Helicarrier floating in the distance.  She’d laughed and sent him the latest image of their baby instead.  His phone had buzzed and he’d lowered it to see the image, just as she’d said, How about James?  Since Barnes is the reason why this has happened?  

He’d groaned and tried to persuade her that naming their child after the egomaniacal Captain America was not a good idea.  

She’d chuckled and told him there was still time.  That she’d see him that night and they’d see what the little guy’s vote was.  

They’d hung up with soft “I love you’s” on their lips and he hadn’t thought twice about the possibility of not seeing her.  

Sharon Carter had stayed out of harms way for five years.  The only time she’d stepped foot in Medical was to check on him or his team.  

He’d thought she would always be safe.  He’d thought...

She’d outlive him.

And now there was nothing of Sharon Carter left.

Just her shell of a body.

And a baby boy in the care of Tony Stark.  

Sometimes even superheros cried.

And sometimes they died.  

 


	4. Part Four:  Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the hour is nigh  
> And hopelessness is sinking in  
> And the wolves all cry  
> To fill the night with hollering  
> When your eyes are red  
> And emptiness is all you know  
> With the darkness fed  
> I will be your scarecrow  
> ~Bleeding Out  
> Imagine Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I killed Sharon. 
> 
> I'm sorry. 
> 
> I warred with myself for DAYS about that decision. Pestered my beta, the ever patient and amused Ambpersand, about what I should do and finally just said screw it.
> 
> And killed her.
> 
> Which was better than what I had planned ultimately. 
> 
> I'm a horrible person...
> 
> -M

“He’s tiny, isn’t he?”

Steve didn’t turn at the sound of Stark’s voice in the doorway of the impromptu nursery the man had created on the 80th floor of the Tower.  He didn’t look away from the tiny bundle lying before him, from the wires and IV’s and a scarily familiar circle of blue light which was keeping that bundle alive.  

Stark had rigged his own tech to keep their son alive.  

Why?  

“Go away Stark,” he croaked and his fingers tightened dangerously around the armrests of the rocking chair he’d collapsed in a few hours before.

He hadn’t moved...

Hadn’t...

Breathed.

“Cap, look-” Stark began but Steve cut him off with a barely stifled snarl.  “Stark, I don’t want to hear it.  I-don’t.”  

He could feel Tony Stark’s eyes on the back of his head.  He could feel all of the unspoken apologies both men had been avoiding for the past year.  He could...When had they started hating each other?  

Before the War?

After his “death”?

He couldn’t remember.  

He couldn’t remember anything.  

“I should have been there,” he whispered, his face falling forward into his palms.  He didn’t hear Stark shift in the doorway or the soft gasp of surprise the men let loose.  He didn’t...The baby was breathing so weakly, the noise was so painful in the quiet nursery.  Proof.  Proof that he had failed as a father. As a husband.

As a Captain.  

“I should have been able to keep them safe.  It’s my goddamned job after all, protecting the weak.” He scoffed out a laugh as his eyes fluttered closed and his shoulders sagged.  “I failed...”

It was so quiet, so still, in his son’s impromptu ICU high in Avenger’s Tower, he almost thought Stark had left.  

Left him to his guilt.

Then a hand fell on his shoulder and it was almost like the old days.  Almost, except for the tiny bundle laying before him with a battery source keeping its heart beating.  

“Steve,” Stark said and his voice was gentle, hesitant.  Scared.  “You didn’t fail.  You-you can’t be everywhere at once.  You were doing your duty for the American people.  Sharon-Sharon understood.”

Steve wanted to shake Stark’s hand off of his shoulder.  He wanted to tell the man he was a moron, that he didn’t understand what he’d lost.

But he couldn’t do it.

Stark had lost as much as any of them.

Maybe more.  

Definitely more.  

“Sharon understood.  She knew what it was like, being a hero.  She understood,”  he said dryly as he stood, Stark’s hand falling from his shoulder as he rose.  He didn’t look at the man he’d once considered a brother.  He didn’t...

He wasn’t strong enough.  

“But you know Stark, I don’t think my son will,” he finished softly as he turned to leave the nursery and the bassinet containing is motherless son.

He didn’t look back before the door closed behind him.  He didn’t look back to see Tony Stark’s hands settling on the clear plastic, his face lit by the blue glowing arc reactor which kept his son’s tiny heart beating.  A tear fell from his eyes, proof that Tony Stark was still human, was more man than machine.  Steve didn’t look at man or baby.  Didn’t face them.

He’d failed-how could he be expected to wear the uniform and be called a father?  

He couldn’t.

**

“Oh I couldn’t hold him-he’s so small!”

Steve’s ears pricked at the sound of a familiar voice issuing from the baby’s nursery and he gritted his teeth in irritation. He’d forgotten about her.

Forgotten anyone existed outside of this Tower.

“It’s good for them to have somebody hold them, even for a bit, Miss Carter,” the nurse was saying as he slipped into the room, unnoticed by the two women within.  His breath hitched and he froze in the doorway at the sight of the young woman standing beside the nurse Natasha had hired from one of the local hospitals.

The first thing he noticed was curly blonde hair tumbling free of a rubber band and dark blue eyes sparkling in the warm sunlight streaming through the windows.  Those eyes...

They were so familiar.

But yet, so different from Sharon’s.  From Peggy’s.  So...different.

A beautiful blue but not the eyes he wanted to see.  They were young, innocent, mischievous.  He didn’t think Sharon or Peggy had ever been mischievous.  Even now, five years after he’d met her, she hadn’t changed.  How old was she now?  Twenty-two?  Twenty-three?

Young.  

Younger than he’d ever known Sharon.  

She was smiling, her face bent towards the baby she held and his heart lurched in his chest at the sight of her rocking gently back and forth in her battered red Converse and that crazed blonde hair of hers tumbling over her shoulder to trail over the baby.

His son.  

“You’re perfect Jim-bo,” she sang as she rocked and he was frozen, glued to the floor.  He couldn’t take his eyes from Shannon.  

From his son.

“Your mommy would be so proud.  She’d love you so much, you and your daddy,” she whispered and there were tears in her eyes.  Tears on her cheeks.  

Tears on his cheeks.   

He was crying because Shannon was here.

And Sharon wasn’t.  

Wrong Carter, wrong Carter again.

He moved forward to do something, what he wasn’t completely sure, but he stopped when a hand landed on his shoulder and a quiet voice said, “Steve, don’t.”  

Bucky.

“Let her hold him for a while,” his best friend was saying as he hauled Steve from his son’s Tower nursery.  “She needs to be here as much as you and you know it.”  

“She stole my shield,” he muttered absently, his vision blurred and an odd rushing in his ears as Bucky dragged him away. “I-I should be with him...”

Bucky sighed and Steve barely noticed being shoved through the Avenger’s gym doorway, barely noticed Natasha stretching by the boxing ring, barely noticed Clint and Tatiana boxing.

Barely noticed...

He was so tired.  

“You’ve been in that nursery non-stop for three weeks Steve,” Bucky said, his brown eyes full of dark knowledge.  They were so knowing anymore.  So...cold.  “You have to get out, breathe a bit.  Jimmy will be okay without you looming over him like protective mama bear for a few hours.  It’s just Shannon.  She’s just a kid.”

Steve’s lip curled at that and he felt his muscles lock, just before getting dragged into the ring, into a fight with his old best friend.  And maybe Natasha, who was watching both men with calculated interest in her green eyes.  

He didn’t want to deal with this.  

With them.

“She stole my shield,” he growled, his muscles starting to tighten, to react to the heavy silence of the gym.  The heavy gazes of his team on his back.  “Shannon is not trustworthy.  She’s-she’s...”

He trailed off and Bucky’s eyebrow rose.  “She’s not Sharon,” he supplied and his voice was final, cold.  

Steve’s teeth gritted and his hands rose to once more run frantically through his hair.  It was getting too long, flopping into his eyes and he had a beard now.  

Sharon would have laughed at that, teased him about taking scissors to his head when he slept.  She would have dragged him to SHIELD’s barber and shoved him into the chair, all while calling him Commander Lumberjack.  

He wished he could hear her call him that.  

He should go shave...

Steve hadn’t stepped foot out of the Tower in days, hadn’t removed his uniform from the closet of the guest bedroom Stark had provided him.  It was a nice room, just off the nursery and had a magnificent view of the city.

Of Brooklyn.

Sharon would have laughed at that.  

“I have to go back,” he growled, his voice vague and his eyes burning with the desire to escape, to escape all of this.  

He wasn’t given a chance.  

Bucky punched him in the kidney.

“You’re staying for training Commander,” the new Captain barked and the sound of his fist connecting with the solid muscle of Steve’s back was loud in the silence.  

Tatiana and Clint were no longer tapping gloves.

Their eyes were narrowed and Clint stood between her and the snarling super-soldiers.  

Natasha was fiddling with a throwing knife, her stance easy and her eyes dark with interest.

Bucky threw another punch.

Steve parried with a snarl and pivoted, faster than should have been possible.  Faster than a normal human being would have been able to track.  

Bucky caught his fist with a sneer.

“You’re getting slow old man,” he teased as he twisted his old friend’s wrist in hopes of reeling him in closer.

Steve didn’t let him.  

“You should talk,” he growled as his fist struck out and connected with some ribs.  “You’re the oldest.”  

Their feet made no sound on the springy floor of the gymnasium and their eyes never left the other’s as they danced.  This was something they reveled in, something they each cherished.

They were so perfectly matched now.  

So...super.

Seventy years ago Bucky had taught Steve how to box, never expecting to actually be able to use all of his strength on the shrimp of a kid he’d thought of as a brother.  

Now they were both super soldiers, thanks to the genius of Soviet and American scientists and they knew each other’s strengths better than their own. Bucky was strong but Steve was faster.  And he was angry.  

It made him unpredictable.

And bloodthirsty.  

“Are you going to pound me into the floor this time Commander?” Bucky spat, blood on his chin from an already healing cut Steve had opened with one strike.  

“It would be my pleasure Captain,” Steve snarled back, his too long hair falling in sweaty strings against his eyes.  He feinted but came up against structured titanium and the breath whooshed from his lungs with Bucky’s knotted fist in his gut.  “You’re too cocky.”

Bucky snorted and choked out a laugh, even as Steve dove free of his grip.  “I’m cocky?  Me?  Good joke Commander.  Good joke...”

Their hands were blurs, their bodies as liquid as dancers and as they blurred around the room the only defining features of their dance were a silver arm with red star engraved at the shoulder and the ice blue of eyes narrowed in concentration.  

Neither noticed the door opening or a veritable stranger slipping into the room to witness their dance.

“You have to let Shannon be in Jimmy’s life, Steve,” Bucky panted in the middle of a deadly combination that should have left Steve’s jaw dislocated and his ribs bruised.  His metal hand feathered by Steve’s face as he twisted and his lips lifted in a sneer.

“I don’t want her to, Buck and you know why,” he growled, his words as economical and clipped as his fists.  Bucky smirked when his knuckles connected with metal and he hissed.  “She’s too-she’s Shannon.  I can’t-he’s my son.”  

“That was six years ago Steve, six years ago that she stole your shield,” Bucky panted as he flipped backwards over a set of weights and lobbed a single 100 pounder in Steve’s direction, who simply shifted his weight and twisted his shoulder.

The 100 pounder slammed into the wall and both men smiled at the sound of Natasha sighing in irritation.

They didn’t look around though.  

“She saved our life, remember that old man?  She saved yours and Tony’s life, Clint’s too, before he went and got himself killed that one time.”  Bucky dodged a flying foot and slipped into Steve’s guard as Clint snorted and muttered, “I’ll kill you for that Barnes.”  “You just don’t like the thought of kids fighting your wars, grandpa.”  

Steve grunted when metal fingers connected with his chest and he loosened his muscles in time to absorb another blow.  

“I told you, you’re the oldest,” he snarled, his hand closing around Bucky’s throat and his foot rose to kick out Bucky’s knees.  Both men toppled to the floor and grappled but Steve’s fingers were still on Bucky’s throat.

He didn’t squeeze.

Or at least...

He didn’t squeeze as hard as he could.

Bucky ratcheted out a laugh as he tried to find purchase on his friend’s body but he failed.  

Steve was bigger.

Harder.

And-

“Cap stop, you’re going to kill him!”  

They froze at the sound of an unfamiliar woman’s voice screaming in the gym but before they could react, a tiny blur of curly blonde hair and battered red Converse flew through the room to connect with Steve’s side.

Caught by surprise he was thrown free of Bucky and instinctively he wrapped his arms around the tiny form smashed against him, his body curled around his assailant as they smashed into the side of the ring with a bone jarring thud.  

“Oomph,” he groaned when the air was beat from his lungs.  Spots danced in his eyes and he barely noticed his arms tightening around the tiny figure he held.  

Blonde curls tickled his nose.  

“You can let me go Cap, I’m fine,” a voice he recognized and wished he didn’t whispered against his ear and he shuddered when his body responded to the familiar musky scent washing off her hair.  

Familiar and yet...

Not.

“Shannon,” he snarled and his arms went limp around her body.  She was tiny compared to him but he knew she had been taller than Sharon and Natasha.  She’d played basketball in her youth.

She’d been a gymnast later in her life, in college.

His hands were firm on her rangy muscles and he couldn’t help recalling pictures of her with medals around her neck all throughout Sharon’s house.  She’d been so proud of her sister.  

So...

Shannon was staring at him, her eyes ( _blue, they were blue.  Thank God_ ) glittering, almost like she was fighting tears.  

“Are you okay Cap?” she whispered and he realized he was gripping her shoulders, his fingers digging into her biceps, into the rangy muscles of her slender body.  His senses were on high-alert, wracked by the smell of Sharon, by the sight of Shannon’s blonde hair spread on the floor beneath her head.

He remembered kissing Sharon on one of the last nights, his lips trailing gentle fire up her body, over the soft curve of her belly and then on her swollen breasts.

He remembered the soft purring growl she had let loose at his touch and the way she’d writhed under his lips.  

Why did Shannon have to come here?

Why did James Jackson Carter have an aunt who looked like his mother.

With blue eyes.  

“Cap, look-” his son’s aunt began, her voice harsh and an odd light in her eyes.  

He threw himself off of her, bouncing to his toes, his body tight with nerves, with something-something unspoken.  Something unexpected.  “How did you get in the Tower Shannon?  How-why are you here?”

She rose, far slower than him, almost as if she was afraid of spooking him and she pulled a twice folded envelope from the back pocket of her jeans.  She hesitated, her gaze locked on the front of said envelope and swallowed nervously before raising her eyes to his.

“I came for Sharon,” she said quietly and he barely responded when she held the envelope out to him.  It had her name written on it.  And four words, scrawled in Sharon’s tidy cursive.  

His thumb ran over the words she’d written and his heart wrenched in his chest at the thought of her bending over this paper, a tiny frown wrinkling her brow and her hair tumbling forward over her shoulder.  

He wished he could have watched her write these words.  

 _In case of emergency_ , she’d written.

What kind of emergency had she meant?

“What is this?” he ground out through tensed jaws, his fingers frozen on the envelope.  On the paper she’d pressed the pads of her fingers into.  That her hair had most likely trailed over.

Shannon swallowed nervously and took a step towards him.  “You have to read it Cap, you won’t believe me if I tell you what Shar wrote.”  

He didn’t look at her.  Didn’t breathe.  

He opened the envelope and read the last words his partner had written.  

The words that would forever ensure his son had a mother.

And that he would have someone to keep him sane.  

“She-she wanted you to come live with us in case she passed?  In case our son-James lost her?  Why?”

His harsh voice was weak in the now empty gym.  Sometime during their stand-off his friends had left, leaving them to this drama.  

To this...

New life?

Shannon shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and rocked in her Converse; her blue eyes were uncertain, shadowed.  Scared.  But she had backbone.  She was a Carter.  And she’d stood up to him before.

She’d carried his shield.  She’d reached into the void and said his name.  

She’d brought him back to Sharon.  

She was a Carter.  

“She wanted to make sure you wouldn’t go into the ice again Cap, so to speak,” she muttered, her eyes lowering and her cheeks warming.  “We knew the stories, better than anyone.  Aunt Margaret made sure we knew them and Sharon knew you better than most, even Bucky.  She-she didn’t want to lose you.”  

Steve’s jaw was tight, his fists clenched on the envelope and Sharon’s letter to her little sister.  Her trouble-maker of a sister.

Blue eyes.  

Blue, not brown.

_Shannon, you have to keep him strong.  You have to be brave for him.  He’s still-he’s still Steve Rogers, no matter what SHIELD and the Avengers say.  He’s still...human.  He can’t save everyone all of the time.  So you’ll have to save him when that day comes._

_God knows I did._

_Just...keep him safe.  Keep him strong._

_And the baby...tell him his mother loved him._

“Cap,” she began but he turned away, the letter in his pocket and tears in his eyes.  “I’m not a Captain anymore Shannon,” he said, his voice vague and distant.

He moved across the floor almost as if in a dream.  

She followed.

His new partner.  

Sharon’s sister.

James’ aunt.

She’d stolen his shield but Sharon had asked her to save him.  To keep him strong.  She’d known...known that something could happen and that he’d break.  

She’d known-everything.  

She’d have been the perfect mother.

His heart wrenched in his chest at the thought and he closed his eyes in agony.  Would this ever stop hurting?  Would the thought of her never stop breaking him?

He didn’t think so.

_And the baby...tell him his mother loved him._

James Jackson Carter born to Sharon Carter and Commander Steve Rogers, godson of James “Buchanan” Barnes and Natasha Romanov.  Nephew of Shannon Carter.  

The child of superheroes.

He would be stronger than his father, he knew.

He’d be like his mother.  

Indomitable and beautiful.  Perfect.  

 _Shannon, I hate doing this to you_ , Sharon had written. _I know you want to work with your team, to finish school and god knows what else.  But if something happens to me-I’m not saying it will!  But if something does I want you to save Steve.  He’s going to need saving.  He’s going to need you.  So be strong for me, Shanny, okay?  Please..._

“Steve...we can make this work, you know.  I can be there for James when you're on missions, can change diapers and hold him when he's crying.  I can-I can _help you_ better than Stark or even Bucky,” Shannon said as he pushed through the gym’s doors and headed for the elevator and his son’s nursery.

Her steps were quiet at his back but he could smell her.

He could see those blue eyes crinkling in worry.

Blue, not brown.  

She was here to help him.  She was...she was going to save him.

“We can make this work,” he whispered as he entered his son’s nursery, Shannon Carter at his back.

How could it not work?

Sharon had planned it.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with Shannon's background/characterization-technically she doesn't exist in the 616. She's a 982 character-one of the alternate universe America's. And she's definitely NOT Sharon's sister. But I like her and I like her storyline and her really bizarre interactions with Steve and I thought it would be good to give Sharon and Shannon some backbone.
> 
> So here she is.
> 
> Making life interesting.
> 
> I claim insanity.


	5. Part Five:  A Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter is insanely long. 
> 
> It's made up of flashbacks and barely recognized feelings. Just a warning. 
> 
> Also, so some dialogue may be in italics. 
> 
> That was the only way I could think of doing American sign-language. 
> 
> I'll leave it at that. 
> 
> If there are any concerns, please let me know!
> 
> One more chapter left.
> 
> Love as ever
> 
> -M

“ _This was not what I planned for James’ fourth birthday Bucky._ ”  

Steve’s fingers flew in front of his face in expert, sweeping movements but he was smiling, laughing through the words he both signed and spoke out of habit.  They were directed towards his grinning best friend, who was leaning in the doorway of the kitchen, flour streaking his dark hair and shirt.  A little boy, with curly blonde hair and dark brown eyes rested in his arms, just as flour coated as his godfather.  

He was grinning at his father, his eyes crinkled in an expression so similar to his mother and aunt’s it almost made Steve’s heart stop.  Bucky’s metal arm was wrapped tight around his godson’s waist, holding him easily and not for the first time Steve noted how comfortable his best friend had become with children.

With this particular, special child.  

“ _Hi James,_ ” he said, his lips moving along with his fingers in the habitual method of speaking he’d adopted almost three years ago, when Stark came to him with news no father ever wanted to hear.   _His hearing is damaged pretty drastically.  His last ear infection was so severe-he might be deaf, Steve.  I’m sorry..._  

Not for the first time he wondered if Sharon would have been better at this than him, if she’d have been able to keep James healthy when he was a baby.  

She’d have been able to save their son’s hearing.  

He didn’t doubt it.  

“ _Have you been good for your aunts and uncles?”_ he asked and the little boy grinned mischievously.

That expression was all his aunt.  

And his godfather.  

Two pairs of brown eyes were sparkling at him now from the kitchen doorway; over Bucky’s shoulder he could just make out a listing, sickly green birthday cake sitting on the counter beside a pile of brightly iced cookies in the shapes of trains and Iron Man’s.

Flour coated every surface and the sink was piled high with dishes.

And the curtains, the curtains Sharon had chosen just for this space, were gone.    

Steve’s bag slid from his shoulder and he let out a gusty sigh when the little boy’s fingers rose in front of his face.   _“Hi Daddy_.   _I’ve been good, I think,_ ” he said, before stretching his arms out to his just-returned father.

It had been three days since he’d been held by him, since he’d been kissed goodnight by the most important person in his world.

Steve wrapped his arms around his son and buried his face in his curls.  “Hi James,” he said, his voice rough.  Bucky’s lips twitched sadly at the sight of Steve’s eyes closing and little James’ fingers resting on his father’s throat, reveling in the vibrations of Steve’s words.  “How was he?” he asked Bucky, who shrugged.

“Perfect and you know it,” he said with a snort, before turning back to the messy kitchen.  He ran his fingers through his dark hair, inadvertently depositing more flour as he went, Steve and James at his back and he glanced over his shoulder.  “ _Your boy’s going to be a baker,_ ” he said, his fingers forming the words carefully, still slow even after all of these years since SHIELD and Tony Stark’s joint diagnosis of James Carter-Rogers’ handicap.  

James watched his fingers carefully and laughed brightly.  

Both men smiled when the little boy leaned back in Steve’s arms so his fingers could be free.  “ _Shannon set the kitchen curtains on fire last night when we were making cookies for my birthday party tomorrow,_ ” he said with a cheeky smirk and Steve rolled his eyes dramatically.  

His hands were full so he couldn’t say what he wanted.  

And he couldn’t speak out loud because James was getting better at reading lips.  

Much better.  

“Do I want to even ask how she set the curtains on fire?” he asked Bucky who started cleaning up, his shirt sleeves rolled past his elbows.  His arm glinted dully in the setting sunlight streaming through the denuded windows and the man shot him a warning look.  

“Well she didn’t burn the place down at least, so that’s a definite plus and entirely unusual,” he said, his eyes darting from Steve to his son before finishing with what had become their motto in the past few years, “Shannon is...Shannon.”

Steve sighed and ran his wide palm briskly over his son’s back; the little boy’s fingers were busy on his throat, on his chest, reveling in the tiny vibrations he could just detect under his fingertips.  “Yes, Shannon is Shannon,” Steve said before planting another kiss on his son’s forehead. James giggled and Steve couldn’t help smiling in response.  “ _So where is your aunt?_ ” he asked after he set James down at the more-or-less clean kitchen table and moved to the fridge for a juice box and maybe some carrot sticks for a pre-dinner snack.

He ignored the leftover pizza sitting on the top shelf.

And the nearly empty six-pack of beer.  

There was probably Rocky Road in the freezer as well.  Shannon's favorite.  

James was bouncing in his chair, humming to himself, his eyes intent on the men’s fingers and their lips.  “ _She went out to get some new curtains,_ ” Bucky said, his fingers moving slower than his words.  He made sure he was turned in James’ direction so the little boy could read his lips.  “ _She was upset at destroying Sharon’s decorations.”_

James giggled again and said, his fingers flying so fast only Steve was able to catch the words, _“I told her to get the Iron Man and Spider-Man curtains from Bed Bath and Beyond!”_

Steve rolled his eyes and said, _“I bet you did.  Maybe we’ll get you some for your birthday, okay buddy?”_

Bucky snorted at that but before he could respond the front door opened.  Steve froze in the process of opening James’ apple Juicy Juice, his eyes locked on the kitchen doorway.  He did not see James ask him a question or the bright humor in his son’s eyes.  

His ears pricked at the sound of heels on the hardwood floors of the apartment and his eyes darted in Bucky’s direction; _Who is it?_ he mouthed, the muscles bunched in his shoulders as he prepared to protect the only thing that mattered in this world.

James.

Bucky’s fingers closed around one of the dangerously sharp Cotta knives Natasha made sure to sharpen once a week and Steve’s eyes settled on the shield sitting out of James’ reach on the top of the cabinets.  If all else failed he’d take up the old weapon his friend carried in his stead.  

He had to protect James-

“ _Steve!_ ”  

Both men relaxed with a sigh at her voice saying his name and Steve’s fingers shook slightly as he ran them through his hair, his muscles loosening in response to her presence.  He didn’t take his eyes away from the slender woman standing in the doorway, her arms full of bags.  Her blonde curls exploded around her head, almost like a crazed halo and he couldn’t help smiling at the sight of her tilting in the heels she wore.  

She was staring at him, shocked and more than a little wary.  He supposed he did appear a little wild, with the stubble on his cheeks and half-healed bruises on his cheeks.  

He still smelled like the Savage Land.

And there was still that unspoken tension between them.  From that...night.

Had it only been four nights ago?

It felt like seventy.

She looked unusually put together now and his eyebrows rose in surprise; she was in a black dress he thought he vaguely recognized and red heels, something he’d never seen on her in the past few years since she’d moved in as per Sharon’s posthumous request and he realized she was looking more and more like her sister the closer she got to thirty.  

His heart didn’t clench in reaction to that errant thought.  Instead it...throbbed.  He frowned slightly at that, at the yearning protectiveness he felt towards her, at the sight of those unexplored shadows in her eyes.    

This was unusual...

“ _Shannon,_ ” he said, his fingers moving habitually, even though his back was to James.  “ _Do you need help?”_

She swallowed and her fingers moved carefully around the bags she held, “ _I’m fine, I just have to drop this off in my room,_ ” she said.  Her cheeks warmed and her eyes darted to the windows at their back.  “ _I’ll be right back_.”

And then she was gone, the only sound of her passage the swish of that tight black dress she wore and the light click of her red heels on the floors of their Queens apartment.

Bucky’s eyebrow rose and he glanced at his old friend, who was staring after Shannon, his hand tight around James’ juicebox he still held. It was more squished than square at this point.  His other eyebrow rose to join the first and his lips twitched into a smile.  “Um, Steve?” he asked quietly, laughter in his voice and a certain knowingness in his eyes.  “What’s that all about?”

He didn’t sign and he made sure he was turned enough so his godson wouldn’t be able to see his lips.  

Steve jumped and dragged his eyes away from the empty doorway.  “What?” he croaked, his eyes wide.  “What did you say?”  

Bucky chuckled and shook his head.  “ _Go take a shower Steve.  Natalia will be here soon.  We’ll make dinner for you three and then get out of here, okay?”_

Steve stared at his fingers and then glanced down at his son, who was currently trying to make a cabin out of carrot sticks.  He could tell he was watching the adult’s conversation though.  

He looked too curious.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, his mind still processing his body’s bizarre reaction at the sight of Shannon all dolled up.  “Good idea...”

He moved towards the room he’d once shared with Sharon in a daze; he barely noticed the ache of too-stretched muscles and the itch of sweat-gritted skin rubbing against questionably clean clothes.  All he could think about was the sight of dying sunlight catching and flaming through golden curls and blue eyes gazing warily into his own.  

Blue, not brown.

He paused outside of Shannon’s door, his hand rising to settle on the wood and he frowned when he caught the muffled sound of her talking within; it sounded like she was on the phone with someone.  May Parker most likely.  

He wondered what they were talking about.

His heart was beating, too-loud, in his ears at the memory of her blue eyes meeting his over her frantically signing fingers and he swallowed at the memories those faint movements caused.  

At the memories of her sitting on the floor before him, her arms tight around James’ sleeping body, her hair falling in damp curls around her shoulders.  

 _They’re sending you and Logan to the Savage Land_ , she’d said, her voice quiet and her eyes concerned.  She’d  looked almost as if she’d wanted to say something else, something concerned.

But she didn’t.  

Instead she’d lowered her shadowed eyes, wary since an ill-fated interior decorating incident involving him and the floor and she’d sighed wearily.

Sometimes keeping the world spinning was worse for the families than it was for their soldiers, he’d found over the years.

He had leaned forward, over James and his fingers had risen unbidden to stroke a curl behind her ear; the back of his knuckles had stroked along her cheekbone, the touch soft and tentative.  

As gentle as it had been nearly ten years in the past when she had stretched her own for his through the void and smiled around his name.  

It was different though, than a more recent touch he’d stroked into her skin and he’d found himself longing for something...

More.

Shannon had turned into a lovely woman.

She’d melted into his touch, into the firm hand at the nape of her neck.  Into his lips.

He’d kissed Shannon over his sleeping son.

He’d kissed her with a gentle passion the likes of which he’d never felt before.

And then gone to the Savage Land the next morning.

He’d hoped to forget his slip-up.

That she’d have forgotten.

It looked like neither of them had.  

“Fuck,” he breathed, his hand tightening into a fist on her door. He was itching to open it, to slip silently into her room and watch her move in the only way Shannon Carter could.

He _wanted_ her?

He shook his head and gritted his teeth.

“She’s just a kid,” he lied to himself.  “She’s just...She’s Sharon’s kid sister.  She’s...”

Shannon.  

He had a thing for Carter’s apparently.

He went to his room, his teeth gritted in a snarl and his pants unbearably tight.  

She was Shannon.

She was the wrong Carter.

He didn’t deserve her.

 

She didn’t deserve Captain America.  She really didn’t.  

She...

He’d _kissed_ her.  

That last night before he disappeared into the Savage Land.  He’d kissed _her._ Her lips still burned at the memory, still throbbed and she ran her knuckles over her cheek absently, following the path he’d taken that night.

He’d kissed her.

And she’d run away, using the excuse of "I have to put James to bed now."  But he didn't need to know she'd actually kept her hands tight around her nephew's sleeping body for almost an hour after she knew his father had gone to bed.  She had refused to acknowledge the sneaking thought in the back of her head that if she hadn't held James she'd have ended up in Steve's bed that night.

So she ran away and if she was smart she'd keep running.  

“What do I do here, May?” she asked her best friend, her phone tight in the crook or her shoulder.  “Do I-do I _go after_ Captain America?”

Her best friend and old teammate, Mayday Parker, snorted.  “Shanny, baby, Captain America is Bucky Barnes.  You’re in a domestic, civil union with _Commander_ Rogers.  Remember?  You’re taking care of his kid for your older, scary, sister Sharon.  You don’t _have_ to go after him, you know.  Although considering what happened last month, maybe it'd be a good idea to get out of Dodge for a couple days."  Shannon winced at that, still hating herself for telling her best friend about _that_  particular fuck-up.  May heard her groan and chuckled before asking, "How’d your date with Rider go?”  

Shannon rolled her eyes and shook her hair free of the tight chignon she’d tried to force on it for her date; a large part of her welcomed the distraction for her questionable feelings towards her sort-of brother-in-law. “Nova was fine.  He’s grown up a lot since we worked with him.  He took me to the Palisades and then got me chocolate roses,” she muttered before setting the phone down on her messy bed and unzipping the little side zipper of her black dress.

It had been one of Sharon’s.

She’d found it in her closet, tucked between her uniforms and the leather jackets Steve had loved giving her for her birthdays.

He’d doted on her, like he doted on James.  But not her.  

She’d been so scared he’d recognize the dress on her, recognize the shoes.  

What would he have done if he had?  Would he have ordered her to remove them and put them back where they belonged?  Would he have ignored them, waited until Jim-bo was in bed and Bucky was back in Natasha’s arms, and then confronted her about going through her sister’s things,?  

Would he have torn the dress from her, his icey blue eyes blazing and his touch harsh on her skin?

She shook herself, her fingers frozen on the tiny pull of the zipper and swallowed.  She could hear May saying her name over the phone’s speakers, could hear her best friend’s concern.  

She couldn’t...

Couldn’t get the feel of his fingers off of her skin.

Suddenly that afternoon, the afternoon she’d finished hanging the pictures currently lining the wall near her window, rushed back down on her and her knees began to tremble at the memory of his touch burning into her skin.  She couldn’t get the feel of his hips pressing into hers out of her head.

She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be touched by Steve Rogers.

 _How could I have forgotten that?_ she asked herself as her skin burned and dark desire once more rushed through her body.   _How could I have forgotten what_ that _felt like?_

She picked up the phone.

“May, I’m going to have to call you back.  I have to check on James and make sure Barnes isn't trying to give him beer again,” she ground out, her eyes settling on the bedroom door.  She imagined Steve was just there, waiting for her, warring with himself just as she warred with her body’s sudden onslaught of firey desire.  

She imagined his hand knotting into a fist like it did when Stark examined Jim-bo’s ears, both men silently hopeful that this time, this time things would be different.

Things were going to be different tonight, she’d make sure of that.  

“What are you doing Shanny?!  What are you doing?”

She hung up on her best friend and stepped free of her sister’s puddled dress.  

The red heels still hugged her ankles, lending her a further three inches to her already impossible 6’2”.  

The nice thing about always being around superheroes?

Everyone was taller than her, which meant she could wear heels.

As she made her way across the room, her steps long and languid, unhurried (unusual, so unusual.  What was happening to her?) her fingers dragged absently up her sides, brushing the black lace of her thong and the black satin of her bra to bury in her blonde curls.

She wondered if he ever thought about burying himself in her hair.

In her body.

He’d come so close that one afternoon.  And then he’d kissed her four nights ago.

He’d kissed her.  

She couldn’t get him off of her skin.  Out of her head.  

She couldn’t...

Four nights had been too long.

She had to get some answers tonight.  

She went to him.  

 

The warm water cascading over his body did very little to calm his nerves.  Or whatever this was.  He stood under the shower, his head bowed against the stream and pressed his hands to the cool tile, desperate for something, anything, to anchor him.  To stabilize his shaking body.  

He couldn’t get Shannon out of his head.

She’d been living with them for four years now, since that night she’d given him Sharon’s letter and in that time he’d watched her grow and mature, even as James grew.

Watched her become a mother to his son.  

She’d held him when he cried, soothed him when his ears ached, chased after him in parks, their blonde curls streaming behind them as they went.  She’d held James in her arms and waved from the apartment’s balcony when his father left for a mission.  Or came home from one, tired and beaten but happy nonetheless for doing his duty.  For being alive and actually being able to come home to his son and her.  She even waited up on nights when he came too late for James to greet him, a bottle of wine at her side and a cheesy action movie on the TV.  She’d become a part of their lives so completely it almost hurt to think of her leaving him and James.  

Of her moving on to better things.  

He wondered if she had gone on a date this afternoon, wondered if that was why she’d been wearing a dress and heels when normally she opted for t-shirts, jeans and Converse.  She’d been so tall, so elegant tonight he almost hadn’t recognized her.  

She hadn’t seemed so...

Shannon-like.  

She’d seemed more...

Adultlike?

He shivered under the water, letting it rush past his ears, drowning any sound that may have come to him from the rest of the apartment.  He had been listening to Bucky telling James a story from the War, form the first War and it had been enough to hold him back.

But now, now he _really_ couldn’t get her out of his head.  Couldn’t stop hearing her voice and her fingers moving with her lips, the dual methods of speaking as habitual for her as it was for him now.

She had become better than him at signing.  

Better than Stark even, who’d mastered it in one night after James’ ill-fated diagnosis.  

He hadn’t been able to drag his eyes away from her slender fingers flying, shaping, _speaking_ and he couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to have those fingers trail over his skin, running idle patterns on his body as they went.  

His fingers tightened and he shifted his feet so he was full under the blast now, his face turned into the water, almost as if he hoped the stream would wash away the thoughts in his mind.

It didn’t.

 _You and Sharon made a perfect little human being, Steve.  Guess that shouldn't surprise me.  You two were perfect together anyway,_ Shannon had said one night, early in their uneasy partnership.  He’d found her in the nursery, her too-tall body curled into the rocking chair, James clutched gently to her heart.

He still remembered what it had felt like to see his son’s tiny fingers twisting through her hair.  

Bittersweet agony.

Her eyes had been so blue, so uncertain, scared that she would fail him, make him angry.  

But the rest of her was so calm, so careful.  She made a wonderful mother.  

He had turned to leave and said over his shoulder, _Sharon was perfect.  I was never like her, Shannon._

She’d been quiet as he left and she’d never said anything like that ever again.  At least, not to him or within his hearing.  

His mind drifted, drifted from the memory of her muscular legs emerging from the short skirt of her dress, drifted to another memory.

Anything to keep sane.

 _This suits you, you know_ , he’d said from the doorway of James’ bedroom one night, a year or so ago.  He’d woken in the middle of the night and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water, then, pausing outside of his son’s door he’d hesitated and pushed it open.  

To find Shannon curled up around James’ sleeping body, her arms tight around him and her chin nestled in his hair.  Her sleepy eyes had opened to meet his at the tell-tale squeak of the door and she’d smiled before freeing her fingers enough to sign, “ _Nightmare.”_

She’d been so relaxed.  So sure of herself.  

So much more than the Shannon Carter he’d once known.  The gangly teenaged girl with heroes as examples and the never-ceasing desire to do good was still there, but she’d deepened.  Deepened into something more than just _Shannon_.  She’d been a thorn in his side as a teen but she’d been _good_ , all sunshine and sweet laughter.  And uncoordinated limbs tangling together if she moved too quickly and without enough forethought.

But that night she’d been so calm, so level-headed as she held his son and soothed the terrors away.  So perfect.  

Was that when things had changed?

He had no idea...

He didn’t have experience with this, with this particular Carter; his love for Peggy had been a War-time romance, all risk and full of the expectations of death.  They’d barely gotten the chance to know each other, really.  Schmidt had always stood between them, looming from war-torn shadows to laugh and taunt.   Their love had been doomed to an icey end.

And Sharon...

She’d been a wildfire, all consuming and chaotic.  He’d never known what to expect from her, what to tell her.  

She’d been-she’d been his but not, in the end.  It had been like trying to tame a smoldering brush fire in a deadened forest with Sharon.  He’d never held much hope in keeping her, in holding her forever.

He wondered if James would be like his stunningly beautiful mother.

He suspected he would be; he saw it every morning in those stubborn brown eyes when he kissed him goodbye before heading for SHIELD.  

But Shannon was different, wasn’t she?

She was...

She was Shannon and she was sweet and wild, intelligent and haphazard.  She was a Carter and yet she was so different from any Carter he’d ever known.  

She just _was._

 _Shannon is Shannon_ , he, Bucky and Natasha said at night after their workouts.  Almost as if that could explain everything there was to know about his partner.  Explain the icey fire in her eyes and the soft laughter in her voice when she called him during missions for updates on James.  

_Shannon is Shannon and she’s getting under your skin.  Somehow..._

His fingers curled, the nails digging into the grout between the tiles and he shuddered when a half-forgotten memory wracked him, making his skin bump, despite the warm water and impossibly-

Desire, white-hot and raging, gripped him, making his breath hiss between his teeth and his cock harden in response.

_What the hell?_

He could almost feel her beneath him again, feel her hips pressing into his, feel the wet heat of her spreading beneath his touch.

He could almost...

Taste her.

 _Shannon, what are you doing?_ he’d snapped from the doorway of her bedroom a month or so ago, on one of his afternoon’s off from SHIELD.  He’d just settled James in for a nap and had decided to see if she wanted anything from the deli down the road. He’d gone to her room, since he hadn’t found her in the office or the balcony, her habitual haunts during the day.  He’d knocked on her door but she hadn’t responded so he’d pushed it open with the tip of his finger, a frown crinkling his brow.  

He hadn’t been sure what he’d find.

Shannon was Shannon and unpredictable was her middle name.  

Honestly, nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.  

Loud hip-hop had blasted from the laptop balancing precariously upon a pile of dirty laundry; she’d set it all on a chair, which she’d balanced on for some added height and as she stretched onto her tiptoes, arching forward to stretch towards the wall said chair rested against, his mouth had gone dry at the sight of it rocking dangerously on an uncertain looking chair leg.

She’d been trying to hang a picture on the wall, the very top of a collage, and he had sighed at the sight of the three or four other stretching along the wall at her side.

All were crooked and all featured their tiny, impromptu family.  

 _Shannon, you’re going to fall,_ he’d half shouted over the loud music but again, she hadn’t heard and she began to tap a nail into the drywall.

She didn’t hear the loud crack of a strained wooden chair leg shifting under her weight either.  

Just as she’d pulled back for one final tap of her hammer, the chair had finally met its inglorious end.  

And she’d toppled backwards, arms pinwheeling.

To this day he still wasn’t sure how he’d moved so quickly to catch her.

He’d caught her though and their too-tall bodies had tangled together to fall heavily towards the floor; somehow he managed to twist just enough to bear the brunt of the fall and the air had whooshed from his lungs the moment they’d struck the hardwood floors of her bedroom.  His head had slammed sickeningly against the leg of her bed and her forehead had cracked against his with a thud.

He’d blacked out for just a moment, her cry loud in his ears and her knee sharp in his groin.

When he came to with a groan, he’d opened his eyes to see her straddling him, her hips rubbing against his, inadvertently pressing against his aching balls and her breasts had been threatening to spill from the sweat-stained camisole she wore without a bra.

Her “housewife” uniform.

There had been nothing even resembling the housewife in her that day.

She’d looked more like a Valkyrie, wild and untamed, ready to take him where he lay.

The start of something dark and slow-burning had begun to pulse in his belly that day as she tried to clear her head and dug her fingers into his chest in hopes of keeping herself upright.

He still remembered how shocked he’d been at opening his eyes and seeing her chaotically curly blonde hair spilling over her shoulders and the soft swells of her creamy breasts rising before his eyes, leaving very little to the imagination about how well endowed she was.

He’d gone hard beneath her, raging desire ripping through his body in response to her too-convenient placement and she’d stilled in surprise at the friction his rolling hips caused against hers.  

 _Steve?_ she’d asked and her voice, normally brash and full of barely contained laughter, had been meek and more than a little wary.   _Are you okay?_

He hadn’t been able to stop his hands from resting on her hips, pulling her roughly down against his jeans, against his sudden and barely contained erection.  He’d rolled his hips languidly into hers, a primal part of him reveling at the sight of her eyes rolling into the back of her head in response; her slender fingers had spasmed on his shoulders, nails digging half-mooned ridges into the muscles there.  His senses had flared at the sensation of calluses brushing against smooth, sweaty muscle and he’d groaned, the fingers of his right hand rising to tangle in her hair, pulling her into the friction of their thrusting bodies.

 _Oh god,_ she’d moaned, her head falling back on her shoulders as she rolled her hips up against his erection.   _Steve._ He’d bit back a groan at the pressure she’d wrought in his overheated body.  

They'd had just a zipper and thin cotton standing between them and it had the potential of becoming the worst mistake either could ever hope to make.   _Oh fuck,_ she’d whimpered, her voice ragged, her eyelids fluttering in time with his firm touch.  She was wrecked.  

That knowledge had made him burn for days afterwards.  Then, it had simply spurred him further.  

He hadn’t been able to stop himself from sliding one finger up her muscular and silken thigh, up under the edge of the slinky cotton shorts she wore to stroke into where her heated center pressed firmly against his jeans.  

He hadn’t stopped from discovering she wore no panties, from discovering she was wet for him.

He hadn’t stopped from rubbing that single finger firmly against her swollen clit, causing her to cry out and grind more determinedly against his touch, her hair falling forward to curtain their faces, to surround him in her particular musky scent.   

He hadn’t stopped touching her, stroking that deepest part of her he’d never dreamed of before that afternoon.  

He hadn’t stopped, not until his eyes had flown open when she own fingers had begun to stroke him, squeezing his erection through the too-tight denim of his jeans.  He’d opened his eyes to meet her dazed gaze.  

Blue on blue.

Blue, not brown.  

In that moment, reality had come crashing down on him once more and he’d thrown her free of him with a muttered curse; without checking to make sure she was all right, he'd rushed from her sunny bedroom, the door slamming shut behind him, hard enough to dislodge two of her crooked pictures.  

They never spoke of that afternoon after that.

Never...

Now, standing in the shower with the memories of her wary blue gaze locked on his, he found himself wishing they had.

His hand wrapped firmly around his aching erection, while the water beat down around his ears, he let out a sigh; he couldn’t help hoping, uselessly that he’d forget what it had felt like to lie beneath her but his muscles still thrummed at the memory of Shannon Carter’s dazed blue eyes locking on his, her sweet rose-bud of a mouth opened just enough for her tongue to dart out and moisten the corners of her lips.  His body still ached for her, impossibly.  

For Shannon who was Shannon and nothing more and yet...

More than he deserved.  

He stroked.

And thought of her.

 

She couldn’t stop thinking of him, thinking of that dangerous glint in his eyes he always seemed to have when he looked at her these days.

Such a hungry gleam.  

She ached for it.  

She didn’t think of _that_ day as she slid into his room, still in her underwear, a part of her hoping he’d be lying in bed or sitting at his desk with his laptop open and emails from Stark and Hill going unanswered.  

She hoped...

It was silly to dream of strapping Captain ( _Commander_ ) America to the bed and straddling him, right?  It was silly to dream about feeling his fingers tightening against her skull, dragging her head in for a brutal kiss, right?

It was silly to dream...

He was Steve.

And she was Shannon.

Just...

Shannon.

He was in the shower; she could hear the water thrumming through the half-closed door, could smell his particularly spicy soap and that general Steve smell only he had.  

She hesitated, suddenly scared shitless, feeling ridiculous in her underwear and her dead sister’s shoes.  

She was so idiotic.  

 _What did you think was going to happen, Shanny?  That you were going to walk up to him all Asgardian-like, take him by the hand and say in a sultry voice_ come hither?She choked out a laugh and would have turned to go, but froze when she tottered in her heels for the upteenth time that night.

_Yeah, right.  You’d most likely pitch forward and crack your forehead against his nose, breaking it, like that one time in the park._

Her cheeks warmed and she sagged to the bed with a morose sigh, suddenly unable to keep upright.  She sat on the side of Steve Rogers’ bed in just her underwear and it was almost laughable how pathetic she really was.  

She sighed and fiddled with one of her curls, absently twisting it around her finger.  

Unable to stop herself, she picked up the picture frame Steve kept on his bedside table, beside his clock and the baby monitor he always kept on during the nights, just in case James needed something (she had one too.  She’d never told him she kept it on, just in case, as well).  

Her lips curved into her sweet, normal smile and she tucked an errant curl behind her ear as she gazed at the picture.  

It was one of the three of them, from James’ first birthday.  Just before he’d lost his hearing.  Her smile slipped a bit at that, but she ignored the familiar ache in her chest at the memory of clapping her hands behind James’ head and the resulting horror she’d felt when he hadn’t turned in response to the sound.  She wondered if she’d ever get over the guilt of knowing because she was Shannon and not Sharon, her nephew had lost his hearing.

She didn’t doubt Sharon would have been able to save him.

She didn’t doubt...

The pad of her thumb ran over their faces, over James’ and Steve’s.  Steve was grinning up at her, his blue eyes sparkling and his hair tousled from the wind.  His arm had been arched tightly around James, keeping him firmly in place against his hip.  

His other had been wrapped around her shoulders, across her chest.

She’d forgotten that.

Forgotten how safe it had felt there, snug against his side, her head resting on his shoulder.

She was smiling too, a sleepy little grin.  

She’d felt so safe...

Suddenly, his hand was settling in her curls, cupping the back of her skull and sitting there, on the side of his bed, holding what could only be considered a treasure, he was all she could smell.  Sense.  

_Taste._

Steve.

Captain America.

Commander.

She leaned into his hand and turned her head enough to press a kiss to his wrist.  

“Steve,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering closed when he let her touch him.

“Shannon.”  

She could hear the laughter in his voice as he leaned in to kiss her.

 

“ _Is Dad going to kiss Aunt Shannon tonight Aunt Tasha?”_

Natasha’s eyes narrowed in consideration on Steve’s closed bedroom door and couldn’t help a small smile from darting across her lips at the memory of almost catching Shannon in her underwear, slipping through said door, her jaw set determinedly and her long legs all-a-tremble.  

James was toying with his spaghetti, his warm brown eyes intent on his “aunt’s” face and Bucky was snickering into his beer.  

Both adults knew what was going on behind that door.  

“ _Yes, I think he is._ _Is that all right with you James?”_ she asked, her fingers sweeping elegantly before her face.  Her godson smiled happily, his eyes tracking those movements and he nodded before replying.  

“ _I think so.  I mean, I think Aunt Shannon is really cool and Dad thinks she is too.”_ He frowned and glanced at Bucky, who busied himself with his spaghetti, ducking his head before the kid could get a good look at his face.  At the smirk he couldn’t quite hide.  “ _Do you think it’s all right Aunt Tasha?”_

Only she noted the uncertainty on his face, in the slight tremble of his fingers.  

She smiled gently and stretched out a hand to stroke through his curls before saying, “ _I think it’s about time they let themselves be happy, do you understand what I mean, James?”_

He hesitated, his eyes wide and slightly puzzled but then he caught sight of the pictures on the fridge and she noted the one he immediately looked to.

It was a picture of Steve and Sharon, early in her pregnancy with the little boy sitting beside her, spaghetti sauce on his chin.  Both were smiling and Steve’s chin rested on Sharon’s head gently.  His eyes were a soft, warm blue she had so very rarely seen in the past four years since Sharon’s death.  

She’d only seen it when he was with James.

And more recently?

Shannon.

James’ eyes drifted from his mother’s face to a picture just below.  It had been taken a year or so ago, on a night when all of them had had time off, rarer than rare in this day and age and Steve was laughing, his blue eyes sparkling and the corners of his eyes crinkled into crow’s feet.  He was standing next to Shannon, so close their hips touched, and they were talking to each other about something, most likely their so very special ward.   

Their hands touched, the first fingers of each hand tangled together.  

Natasha remembered thinking neither knew they were touching each other so tentatively, remembered thinking she could have screamed _Fire!_ or _I’m going to go fuck Barnes on the balcony_ and neither would have responded.  They’d been so focused, so caught up in the other.

So...

In love?

“ _I think I understand Aunt Tasha,_ ” her godson said and he bent back to his pasta, his fork spinning expertly in his fingers.  

She knew he was thinking though, very carefully about what she’d brought to mind.  She could see it in the slight frown wrinkling his brow, the expression identical to his father’s.  

Barnes leaned back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head and that knowing smirk was back on his lips.  She wondered if she’d get away with punching him in front of the kid.  His brown eyes sparkled knowingly at her and he glanced at James before saying, quietly, “Barton and Stark owe me twenty bucks each.”  

She sighed and twisted a red curl around her finger.  “That bet is four years old Barnes.  Do you honestly think either of those assholes will willingly pay up?”

He shrugged and nudged James with his bare toes.  “ _Kid, you should go ask your Dad if the carpet matches the curtains.”_

Natasha threw pasta across the table as their godson looked on in confusion, a fork of spaghetti and meatballs suspended to his lips.  

“You’re an ass Barnes,” she snapped, her hand clapped over James’ eyes so he couldn’t see her lips form the bad word.  “You know perfectly well what’s happening in that room right now.  And you want James walking in on _that_?!  God, you’re incorrigible!”

His namesake kept snickering, even when a voice said from the doorway, “ _Are you lot causing trouble?_ ”

Turning to see a tousled Steve Rogers, his arm looped around the waist of a blushing Shannon Carter, even Natasha had to work hard at not snickering.  

“ _No sir,”_ two voices chorused while fingers scrambled in the air over cooling spaghetti.  

All three were grinning like loons.  

 


	6. Part Six:  This Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally the end. 
> 
> Hope you all liked this story. 
> 
> I know it kind of went a little odd there in the middle, but hey, such is life! 
> 
> As ever, thanks for reading and love to all!
> 
> -M

Steve couldn’t help grinning at the sight of Shannon and James sprawled together on the couch, popcorn and the remains of what looked like a pint of Rocky Road scattered around their bodies.  Shannon’s hair exploded like liquid gold all around them and a curl drifted over James’ nose every time he snored.

Steve knew he probably should move them but for the moment he contented himself with watching and silently tiding the living room.

He’d been gone for two weeks.

Two solid weeks.

And in that time James had started Kindergarten.  By the looks of it he’d grown a couple inches too.  

Steve’s heart clenched and he stretched out a hand to stroke his son’s bangs back from his forehead.  Two weeks he’d been without bedtime stories, goodnight kisses and Shannon’s head on his shoulder.  Two weeks he’d had to deal with Stark’s abrasive smarminess, Logan’s cigars and Castle’s games.

It’d been far too fucking long since he’d had some sanity.  

“Hey you.”

His eyes flashed to meet Shannon’s over James’ head and he couldn’t help smiling.  “Hey,” he said, his voice pitched low even though James wouldn’t hear.  “You okay?”

She was smiling sleepily, her blue eyes clouded and not quite there and she sighed.  “Never been better Cap,” she murmured, her eyes drifting closed as her head slid back a bit on the armrest of the couch.  “I like this dream...”

He chuckled at that and rose, his hand gentle on her curls.  “I’ll take James, Shannon and be back for you in a second, okay?” he asked as he eased his son’s limp body free of her arms.  She sighed and curled into herself, clutching a pillow to her chest in the little boy’s stead.  

“‘kay,” she muttered before letting her eyes drift closed once more.  “Missed you Steve...”

His heart swelled at that and he couldn’t resist placing a gentle kiss on her cheek before making his way from the living room to James’.  Every muscle in his body ached and he knew he should eat before going to bed but he was just so damn _tired_.  

He sighed and set James down gently in his bed, carefully removing the boy’s t-shirt and socks (James and Shannon hated wearing socks in bed, something Steve found undeniably hilarious).  The little boy hummed in his sleep and Steve chuckled before easing him back onto the pillows and tucking the blankets around his son’s still figure.  

He squatted there for a very long moment, his arms crossed on his knees and his chin resting on his wrists.  For a very long moment he contented himself with watching his little boy sleep, reacquainting himself with his features and the way his dark gold eyelashes broke like a wave on his cheeks.  The way his hand curled into a fist before he tucked it against his ear.  The way he sprawled, taking up most of the bed with his growing legs.  

Steve smiled gently and tried to resist the memories his sleeping boy brought to mind.  

To resist...

“He looks like Sharon when he sleeps.”

He barely reacted to Shannon’s soft voice directly behind him; on some level he’d known she was there, known she would have followed him into the room.

To check on her boys.

He could tell she was exhausted, could hear it in her voice, in the soft scuff of her bare feet as they moved across the lego-riddled floor of James’ room.  

He didn’t wonder anymore about how in-tuned he’d become to her; it was as natural as throwing the shield at this point, as comfortable as his uniform.  Shannon was Shannon and he knew now he loved her for being nothing more than herself.

“He looks like you too, you know,” he said without looking at her.  “He looks like both of you but he sleeps like you-all over the bed.”

She laughed softly at that, the sound brushing over his skin like wildfire and he shivered.  “He’s going to be tall like you I think,” she murmured and her fingers ran through his hair, pulling it from his eyes and tousling it gently as she placed a kiss on his temple.

He longed to return the kiss but she was out of his reach and he was so tired, so battered, so... _exhausted._

He needed her.

Her hands settled on his shoulders as she knelt behind him and tucked her forehead between his shoulder blades before she began rubbing some of the mission-caused tension from his war-battered muscles.  He leaned back into her touch instinctively, his body rocking into hers without thought, absolutely at ease with her.  

She was humming, a song she sometimes listened to while training with May Parker and the others on her team.

It vibrated through him, forcing him to remember how lonely his nights had been, how cold.  

How _boring_.

“I missed you,” he whispered, almost too soft to hear and he shivered at the feel of those fingers trailing over his shoulders to wrap around his chest, to press into his collarbones.  Her body was firm against his, her breasts brushing his back and he remembered she was wearing one of his old t-shirts, one of the really ratty ones she sometimes used to finger paint with James.  His heart did that weird lurching thing in his chest it only ever did for her and his eyes fluttered closed in response as his body began to come to life beneath her fingers.

She’d smoothed her hands down his chest to his stomach now, her palms firm on his abs and somehow she’d gotten his shirt hiked up out of his pants.  

Her fingers were warm, the little calluses on the pads a familiar roughness on his skin he longed to reacquaint himself with.

Her hair was a soft curtain against his cheek, smelling of the strawberry shampoo she loved and that he had used on accident a few times in the morning when he was too tired to open his eyes.

Stark and Clint had never let him live those times down.

 _Captain Strawberry Shortcake_ they’d called him.  Until Natasha had wrung their ears.  

“Did you really miss me Cap?” she whispered in his ear, her words hot and smelling like chocolate and popcorn.  She smelled like movie nights.  She smelled like home.  “How much?”

He chuckled before turning his body to face hers, to kiss the tip of her nose.  “So much I made a stop at Tiffany’s this afternoon on the way to headquarters for a debrief,” he said, his voice rough with some unknown emotion.

Her blue eyes (blue, so blue) were wide and uncomprehending at his words and her long blonde eyelashes fluttered closed when he cupped her cheek gently in the palm of his hands and his lips closed on hers to tease along her bottom lip towards the elegant shelf of her jaw.  

He’d hated her once upon a time for her strong features which were so different from her older sister’s, hated her for her long fingers and the toes to match.  

He’d _hated_ her for being _her_ and not Sharon.  

How stupid.  She was perfect the way she was, with her long legs which could take over James in three strides when the little boy decided to run off in the park.  With her long hair that always ended up tickling his nose during the night when she sprawled at his side, limbs akimbo.  She was perfect, from the freckles on her nose, to the little scar bisecting the upper ridge of her top lip.  From the appendectomy scar on her flat belly to the star tattoo on the top of her foot that she’d gotten when she was a freshman in college.

She was Shannon and she was his.

Or she would be soon.

Maybe.

“What do you mean?” she whispered, her voice rough as that hand stroked back to tangle in her hair, anchoring him to her, reminding him that he was home.  Finally.  “Tiffany who?”

She barely noticed him opening the palm of her limp hand resting against his chest and the tiny velveteen box he set there in her fingers.

“The only Tiffany who matters Shan,” he whispered along her jaw.  He rested his forehead against hers for one brief moment and then leaned back.  His hands cradled hers, the one with the box sitting innocently in her palm and suddenly she no longer looked sleepy or dream-fuddled.  

She suddenly seemed...

Terrified.

Her eyes widened, the blue (blue, not brown.  He was so glad they weren’t brown...) darkening to the point that they were midnight black and she began to shiver.  “Steve, what-” she whispered and her head was shaking, wild curls rippling across her face to tangle in her suddenly dry lips.  “You can’t I-”

He caught her cheek gently in the palm of his hand once more and spread his fingers into her hair, reveling absently in the soft silk of her curls.  “Shannon, stop,” he said softly.  “Breathe, you’re all right.”

“You can’t,” she kept repeating, even as his hand moved to open the little sky blue jewelry box.  “You can’t, this is-you don’t know what you’re doing.”

He chuckled at that and stroked his thumb over her cheek, his eyes crinkling at the corners when she gazed in wonder at the ring shining from the box’s silver satin interior.  “I know exactly what I’m doing Shannon.  I’m doing this because I’ve been wanting to for months.  Years even.  You are,” he sighed and pulled her in for a kiss to her forehead.  She was shaking so hard now, her body quaking against his chest and he couldn’t help being a little sad about that.

Shannon was so fierce.

So strong and brave, capable of facing scraped knees and the stomach flu with nothing but a soft chuckle and a _Getting some awesome battle-scars there Jim-bo_.

She could be so much braver than him.

But sometimes...

Sometimes she forgot that.  

“You are Shannon and you are perfect for me, do you hear me Shan?” he asked, his lips brushing her temple as he sought to calm her.

He realized she was crying and he sighed before dragging her into his lap, his strong arms folding her against his chest almost as if she were James experiencing a particularly awful nightmare.  She may be tall, impossibly tall, but he knew just how to hold her, how to tuck her just right under his chin, his arms tight around her torso.  He knew her better than anyone now.  

Better than himself in many ways.

Her shaking began to ease and her fingers trailed over his collarbones, her touch tentative and he knew she was staring at the ring through her tears.  He wondered if he’d shocked her past answering.

He thought it was possible.

Shannon sniffed after a moment and then muttered, “Are-are you sure?” she asked.

His eyes closed at the uncertain tone in her voice and he pulled her chin up so she could see him smile gently.  “Of course I’m sure,” he said and he kissed her.  

When they finally broke away she was still crying but she was smiling through her tears and she’d melted a bit in his arms.  His fingers closed gently around hers and he glanced at her before raising the ring before her eyes.  

“Margaret Shannon Carter,” he began softly, right there in his son’s room, “will you be the partner to this impossible dance you and I are waltzing through?”

She swallowed heavily, her eyes so blue and bright with the tears which still drifted over her cheeks.  The tip of her nose was red with emotion and he smiled before tucking a few curls which had gotten caught in the trails of tears behind her ears.  

She looked so much like James and Sharon.

And yet...

Not.  

She was Shannon and she was his.

Almost.

Maybe.

“As long as you promise not to step on my toes,” she said after a moment of careful breathing and shocked calculation.  “Then I think I can find a pretty dress pefect for our dance Steve Rogers.”

His lips curled into a smile and just as he began to slip the ring onto her finger the sound of clapping issued from behind them and they both froze, suddenly lurching back to reality.

Back to the floor of James’ room.

Legos were scattered on the floor around them and Steve was sitting on a stuffed bear affectionately nicknamed Bucky Bear.  

Shannon had popcorn in her hair.

And his raggedy shirt was slipping over her shoulder to reveal the soft swell of her right breast.

James was staring at them from where he knelt in the middle of his bed and he was bouncing up and down in excitement.

He couldn’t stop clapping.  

“ _It’s about time you asked her Dad,”_ he said with a cheeky grin as Shannon began to laugh, her head tucked into Steve’s shoulder, tears once more streaming down her face to soak his tight grey t-shirt.

“ _Sometimes your Pop is a little slow on the uptake, Jim-bo,”_ she said, her hands raised over her head and both boys began to laugh, even as Steve kissed the crown of her head and slid the ring home on her signing finger.  

Then, under the watchful gaze of his son he pulled her to her feet and cupped her cheeks between his wide palms.  

Their eyes locked on each other’s, blue on blue, and his crinkled at the corners as he leaned his head the few inches she didn’t have on him.   “Love is so easy, when I’m with you Shan,” he whispered so only she could hear or see.  “I never thought it was supposed to be, but it is.  That’s what amazes me about you Shannon.  You’re you and I’m me when it’s just us and it’s as simple as that.”  

She barely breathed, barely dared to believe that this was happening and as he pulled her close for a smooth-as-sin kiss, she whispered, “You already got me in the ring, Rogers, you don’t have to beg anymore.”

He chuckled and tweaked her ear, his lips firm and warm on hers.  

They could just see James grinning at them out of the corner of their eyes.  

**

James Jackson Carter-Rogers was grinning on the day he got his hearing back.

But he wasn’t grinning because of that necessarily.  

He was grinning because his Dad and Aunt Shannon were _finally_ getting married.  According to his Aunt’s Natasha, Tatiana and Pepper, a three year engagement was far too long but according to Shannon it was enough time for them to really get their heads in line.

It also gave both heroes a chance at finding a balance between parenting, relationship and superheroing.

James didn’t really care either way, just so long as a wedding happened at _some point_.

Some point was finally today.  

“I’m warning you now James,” Tony Stark was saying as he fiddled with the brand-new Starkdesign cochlear implant’s settings.  “This may take a bit to get used to.”  

James should have been amazed at actually being able to hear what the man was saying.  He should have been calling Shannon on an actual, real-life phone, and telling her he could hear her voice for the first time in five years.  He should have been asking Tony to turn his classic rock up louder so he could hear his first, actual, guitar solo.  

James should have been doing a lot of things but he wasn’t.  

He was bouncing up and down on the examination table Tony had pointed him to the moment he arrived in his workshop and he couldn’t help glancing at his watch every few seconds.

They were going to be late.

And Tony was still tinkering.

“ _We’re going to be late Tony,”_ he said, his fingers flying in blurs before his face.  Tony leveled a dangerous glare on him and he smiled sheepishly before swallowing and taking a deep breath.  “We’re going to be late Tony,” he said slowly, his voice rough.  

He told himself it was because he still wasn’t used to speaking out loud.

Really, it was because he was insanely nervous.  

He fiddled with the bow tie of his tux and watched Tony’s fingers fly over the screen of the tablet resting at his hip. Tony glanced at him and narrowed his eyes.  “You’re sure you’re doing okay James?” he asked quietly, pitching his voice low enough that James had to work at catching his individual words.  “You sure you don’t have a headache or nausea or anything?”

James shook his head, carefully and smiled.  “I’m okay Tony,” he said and he blushed when Tony’s fingers settled on his own, stilling them, and a single brow arched over his dark eyes.  “Sorry,” he muttered.  

Tony chuckled and ruffled his hair, mussing the careful styling Natasha had placed it in just an hour previous.  She was currently sitting out in the hallway with Pepper Potts, her long legs crossed beneath the hem of the red dress she wore for the wedding.  

Waiting for him.

For the implant.

For him to hear.

Only she and a few others knew why he’d been coming to the Avenger’s Tower so often over the past year.  Only the people he trusted enough to keep his secret from his Dad and aunt.    

His Dad thought he was getting tutoring in his science class from Tony.  Sharon thought he was training with Clint Barton in the gym.  

Somehow they’d managed to keep the real reason from them.

“This is strong tech kiddo,” Tony was saying, his fingers back at the side of James’ skull, making sure the implant he’d designed wasn’t showing.  He smoothed the boy’s hair over the device and sighed.  “If you feel _anything_ you come straight to me, all right? No second-guesses. I’ve never-I’ve never done something like this before.”  

James smiled brightly and clapped him on the shoulder, making the older man smile.  “I’m fine Tony,” he said.  “You’ve been tinkering with this for a year and I’ve been practicing with it for just as long.  It’s perfect.  You have to believe that, okay?”  

Dark blue eyes settled on brown and Tony Stark finally let himself relax.  His hands rose to the kid’s face and he smiled.  “You’re right kid,” he said with a soft chuckle.  “Everything’s going to be fine.  I’m Tony Stark.  I design tech in my sleep.  This is just a mini arc and auditory tech I designed one night on a whim.  What could go wrong?”

James thought the tone in the man’s voice might be considered dry or sardonic.  

He ignored it and wrapped his arms around the man’s neck.

“Thank you Tony,” he said softly as the doors opened.

“Okay boys,” Natasha said, her voice soft and her fingers still at her side; she kept a careful eye on James, noting how quickly his head turned towards the sound of her voice and the soft blue glow at his ear, hidden almost entirely by his longish hair.   _So, Stark pulled it off.  Interesting._  She smiled and held her hand out to James as he scrambled down off of the examination table, inadvertently wrinkling his pants.  She rolled her eyes as his hand slid into hers and she leveled a dangerous glare on Tony before saying, “We’re late for the wedding.”  

 

“They’re late!  God, I should have taken James to the Tower myself!”

Bucky Barnes’ frantic voice could be heard through most of the church, even though he and Steve were in the basement, an abandoned game of Slap Jack spread on the table before the groom.  

Both men were in tails, simple white roses in their jacket lapels and one at least was pale and nervously pacing.  

“They’ll be here Buck,” Steve said quietly, his hands folded over the scattered cards and his eyes crinkled at the corners.  He was grinning, watching his best friend pace and sweat.  

He was as calm as ever, somehow, impossibly.

His phone vibrated and he glanced at the screen before opening the message. Unnoticed by Bucky, still fretting, his eyes began to sparkle, their blue far softer and warmer than any of his friends would have ever seen them.

There was only one person in the world he looked on like this.   

_It’s a bad idea to walk down the aisle barefoot, right?_

His lips twitched as he typed a reply.   _Only if the bride’s going to be taller than the groom in heels._

There was a pause and then just, _Haha.  Jerk._

He set the phone down and tapped his fingers once, twice on the now-dark screen.  He turned his gaze back to Bucky and asked, “Do you know _why_ James had to go to Stark this afternoon?  Didn’t he know he was going to see him after the ceremony?”

Bucky shrugged and his brown eyes didn’t quite meet Steve’s blue.  He was hiding something and he’d keep hiding it until after the wedding.  This was Steve and Shannon’s day.

He wasn’t going to mess it up for James.  

“No idea Rogers,” he said as his fingers nervously fiddled with the soft gold fabric of his waistcoat.  He jumped and glanced at his phone which he held in his right hand.  Steve’s eyebrows rose but Bucky ignored him and muttered, “Thank God, they’re almost here.”  His shoulders relaxed a bit at that and he sighed before running the fingers of his left hand through his hair.  Steve chuckled as Natasha’s careful styling slid free and he couldn’t help wondering if Buck had done it on purpose.

It wouldn’t surprise him.

Anything for Natasha’s fingers on the man’s skin.

Anything.

He couldn’t blame his old friend though.

He had become that way with Shannon.

“What do you think she’ll look like Buck?” he asked suddenly, his fingers still tapping slowly on his phone.  

His eyes were locked on the window across from him, the window with a clear view of the parking lot.  He wondered, briefly, if he’d see Natasha’s red Ferrari pull in.  Or James’ shiny black dress shoes walking by on his way to the quiet church entryway.

A soft laugh drew his attention to the door leading from the basement and his eyebrow rose at the sight of Natasha leaning in the doorway, her black leather jacket draped over her shoulder and her brows arched over the frames of her aviators.  

“Getting nervous Rogers?” she asked, her voice smooth and light with laughter.  Her green dress clung to her, sinfully according to Bucky last night at the “stag party” he’d thrown together last minute.

Barton had sighed and grumbled sullenly into his beer, _No wonder Tia’s all in a tizzy about the bridesmaid dresses._

Steve’s eyebrow arched as he rose and he asked as he absently straightened his tux jacket, “Where were you guys?”

She only shrugged one pale shoulder, her eyes as shadowy as ever and she stretched out a hand for both men.  “Doesn’t matter Rogers, you have a wedding to get to.  Shannon’s probably freaking out by now.”

Steve chuckled.

He knew Shannon Carter, soon to be Shannon Rogers, wasn’t “freaking out.”

She was calmer than him at this point.

The wedding had been his idea after all; she simply chose her favorite dress out of the five Natasha, Pepper and Tatiana had chosen for the ceremony and let Stark and his ever efficient wife and partner do the rest of the planning.

If she’d had her way she’d have gone to the courthouse in jeans and a t-shirt and signed some paperwork

But that was what he and Sharon had done.

So she’d agreed to a real-life wedding.

Because she was Shannon and not Sharon.   

 _I’m coming_ , he typed into his phone as he was ushered up the stairs to the entry right next to the altar.  His hands were only a bit sweaty.  

His heart only hammered slightly harder than normal in his chest.  

He wondered if the church was spinning or if he was going to faint.  

_See you in a sec big man.  I’ll be the one in white.   Strike up the band._

 

The moment Shannon noticed something was different about James was when they began heading down the aisle at a painfully slow march (her legs were so goddamn long, did she _really_ have to keep her steps so short?  God...) and she saw James’ head cock in the direction of the organ where the wedding march played.

His brown eyes had started to sparkle and for one brief moment she was afraid he’d drop the rings he held reverently before him.  There was a spring in his step she’d never seen before and his head kept twisting whenever somebody gasped at the sight of her in the ridiculous white gown Pepper, May and Tia had shoved her in just a few hours ago.

She didn’t have time to ponder what his odd behaviour meant though.  Steve was just taking his position at the altar, Natasha, Clint and Bucky at his back.

Mayday pushed her down the aisle with a hissed, “Go on Carter! You’re both starting to look nervous!  People might think this’ll turn into a runaway wedding!”

And with her maid of honor’s words she forgot all about James and the unusual way he was acting.

Although...

It looked almost like...

Almost like he could...

_Hear._

“Slower Carter, slower.  He’s going to think you’re desperate,” May muttered at her side as both women began to head down the aisle towards the rest of their wedding party, Tia walking steadily before them.  

Shannon shot her best friend a glare and shuffled the ridiculous bouquet of white roses to her left hand.  Then, with a careful glance around her to the fifty or so guests who had showed up for their wedding, she pulled her phone out of her pocket.  

May snorted at the sight of the bride hiding her iPhone in roses but Shannon ignored her and pulled up her thread with Steve.

 _Something up with James_ , she typed.  She pressed send and glanced up to meet Steve’s eyes.  He was smiling, a soft smile she knew he reserved for her and her eyebrow rose as she subtly slipped the phone back into her pocket.

His rose as well and she saw him glance down at his phone, which he eased out of his own pocket.

He was frowning when his gaze leveled on his son, who was still walking with a bright eyed cockines they’d never seen before.

His frown deepened and he shrugged ever so slightly, just as confused as her.  

But again, there was no time to ponder, because suddenly the toes of her too-tall ivory satin shoes were brushing the edge of the first stair leading to the altar and james was settling beside Natasha, who smiled down at him before positioning him just right at her side.

Shannon took a deep breath before taking the first step towards the altar and the new chapter of her life when suddenly she froze and felt something like panic sweep down on her.  

“Oh no,” she whispered in horror, her eyes locked on Steve’s; he was just a few feet from her, his hands shoved in his pockets and his blue eyes were sparkling.

She was teetering in her heels, just like that long-ago night, the night before James’ fifth birthday when she’d finally decided to take things into her own hands.

Things Steve ended up taking care of, just like always.

She was teetering, literally and figuratively, on the brink, and while their guests and friends began to murmur at her back she found herself wishing she could just sit and catch her breath.

Sit and think.

Figure out what was going on with James.

Adjust the garter pinching her thigh, waiting for Steve’s touch.

She needed-she needed-

“Shannon.”

Steve’s voice was as gentle as his fingers stroked her pale cheeks and she shuddered and blinked as he held her, right there in the church, before god(s) and heroes.  

“Breathe Shan, breathe,” he whispered and god help her she did.  But only after he’d kissed her, gently, teasingly.

“There’s more where that came from,” he whispered in her ear, his fingers tangled slightly in the braids and curls of her wedding up-do.  

“There better be,” she whispered back with a soft laugh.  “You got me in a dress Steve Rogers.  I demand retribution.”

He smiled and began to lead her up the three little stairs leading straight to the altar and the smiling priest but before she got much further she swore under her breath (yeah, yeah, church and all but _damn_ ).  “Sorry,” she muttered to the wedding party and their initiator.  “I can’t walk in these damn heels.”

She kicked the satin heels off and-

James giggled.

 

Her son was giggling like a goddamned hyena.  

Steve’s eyes were as cold as the ice he’d been frozen in for seventy years.  

“Tony I don’t know how I feel about this,” he muttered, his fingers firm on his son’s skull and the device glowing cheerfully over his ear.  “How does it even work?  Be quiet James.”

Tony Stark shrugged and winked at James, who giggled once more; Shannon was tickling him as she held him on the lap of her elegantly draped wedding dress (the pockets had been his idea).  Her chin rested on his head, close to Steve’s fingers, the hand with the wedding band on his left hand.

It glittered in the light blue light of the cochlear’s arc.  

“It’s fine Steve,” she said, her voice gentle-far surer than it had been while saying her vows just moments before.  “James can hear.”

Steve swallowed and stroked his hand through his son’s dark blonde hair once more.  “He can hear,” he whispered.  “H-how?”

James smiled and patted his hand.  “Science Dad, just science,” he said quietly and Shannon buried her face in his hair with a sniff.

There was not a dry eye in the room as James grinned at his gathered “aunts,” “uncles” and father.

And mother.  

“It really wasn’t that hard to come up with a better design for an implant Dad, honest,” he began but he didn’t get very far.

Steve hugged him and Shannon tightly, his hand firm at the back of her head, anchoring them and he was laughing.

Laughing and crying.  
“God, I love you,” he choked out.  “I love you both...”  

 

“Love is never hard when I am with you Shannon...”

“I have loved you, Steve Rogers, for more years than any of us care to remember.  You were my hero and...”

“Sometimes the dance takes us to the edge of the world, but if we have the right partners...maybe, just maybe, we’ll be pulled from the brink.”

They were married.

It was finally official.  

She was Margaret Shannon Rogers, nee Carter.

She was married to Captain America (Commander Rogers).

And he was married to American Dream.

Good thing there were two shields to go around.

Finally the wedding was over, the reception still carried on at the Tower, but the most important part was over.  James was with Natasha and Bucky for the weekend and both Steve and Shannon had told Hill that they would be taking leave for three days while on their “honeymoon.”  They didn’t tell anyone where they were going, only Bucky and Natasha knew, mostly for the sake of James.  Bucky had laughed about their plans for a good hour after Steve had told him but Natasha had smiled.  

_You two deserve a break.  Go, have some time where you can just be Steve and Shannon.  Don’t worry about the kid.  We’ll keep him out of trouble, relatively speaking.  You two take as long as you need._

Her quiet approval had shut Bucky up instantly and Steve had sighed in relief.

That night, safe in their Queens apartment with a new gold ring on her finger, Shannon heaved a sigh and reached behind her to start unbuttoning the dress weighing her down; after this whole deal she was never wearing a dress again.

“Jeans and Converse for the rest of my life,” she muttered to herself as the buttons finally began to pop free.

“Jeans and Converse or nothing,” he said from behind her, his voice as warm as his hands.  He brushed hers aside and made quick work of the wedding dress.

It puddled to her feet in a whisper of satin and silk and she turned, hands on hips to meet his hooded gaze.  

“‘Nothing’?” she repeated, laughter in her voice.  “Oh really Steve Rogers?”

His hands drifted up her sides to her hair and she shivered at his feathering touch.  “Yes, I happen to think you look better in nothing,” he said, his voice husky as he sank his hands into her hair and began to pull pins free.  

Blonde curls, more wild for the braids she’d been forced to wear, spilled free of his palms and soon her scalp no longer screamed at the heavy weight of the up-do.  

“God, I love your hair,” he ground out, his body pressed tight against hers and his nose buried in her golden tresses.

Her hands rose of their own accord to fiddle with the buttons of his tux shirt and she chuckled as he combed her hair with just his fingers.  “Try washing it sometime, Cap.  You might not like it so much when you find a mat or two.”

He pulled back enough to meet her gaze and he smiled.

“Can I wash your hair tonight Shannon Rogers?” he asked, his blue eyes sparkling mischievously and her eyebrows rose.

“You want-you want to _wash_ my hair Steve Rogers?” she sputtered and he nodded.  Before she could protest he was scooping her up into his arms and carrying her towards the bathroom.

Her laughter filled his ears and her hair tickled his nose.

“Put me down Steve!  You’re going to throw out your back!  I’m too tall-oh!”

Her eyes widened at the sight of the bathroom lit in nothing but candles; rose petals scattered the floor and steaming bathwater.

“Oh,” she whispered as he lowered her to her bare feet and busied himself with the corset she’d worn under the dress.  “This is-this is.  Steve-I,” she sputtered as he kissed her skin and began to rub some of the wedding-tension from her shoulders.

“What do you think Shannon Rogers,” he whispered in her ear, his hands firm on her body, on her breasts, on her ass.  “Do you think it will be hard, being married to me?”

She choked out a laugh and turned in his arms, looping her arms around his neck as she did and hauling herself up the three or so inches she didn’t have on him, she placed her lips to his.

“No Cap,” she said, her voice a husky purr and her eyes, which were so very, very blue, darkening to a sultry midnight he knew he loved too much.  “I don’t think it’ll be hard being married to you at all.”

He sighed and kissed her deeply but as he broke away she stroked his cheek and pressed her forehead to his.  Then, with a soft kiss to his jaw, she whispered, “We’re superheroes after all.  Love has never been hard for people like us.”


End file.
